Environmental Pollution Control Industry in Korea

한국의 환경오염방지산업

Since 1962, Korea has made a remarkable progress with continuous success of Five-Year Economic Development Plans. Over the last 30 years, Korea has achieved a fast growth in various industries including heavy industry and chemical industry with rapid urbanization at the same time. The fast industrialization and urbanization brought about huge amount of hazardous/toxic substances and wastes. The environmental pollution problems have now emerged from regional concerns to overall social issues accordingly. The situation has come to a point where pollution control and environment preservation have become one of the nation's major policies. Following the recent Earth Summit of UNCED Conference held in Riode Janeiro in June 1992, where the topic was environmentally sound and sustainable development, awareness upon the importance of environmental preservation has been heightened globally, The environmental issues will gradually influence the international society more and more, politically as well as economically, The environmental pollution control industry in Korea started in the early 70's with the development of the nation's industrialization, As the people's awareness on pollution increases and environmental laws and enforcing regulations were established, demand for pollution control began to increase. The environmental pollution control business came to be recognized as an independent industry in the mid'70's. It should be evaluated properly that over the last 30 years, the Korean pollution control industry has supplied locally manufactured pollution control facilities to the increasing local demand. Concerning the quality and customer satisfaction, however, there are still many aspects which need to be improved compared with those of advanced countries. Although the start of the pollution control industry in Korea is just 10 to 15 years behind the advanced countries such as Japan and European countries, current gap in the environmental technology is rather considerable. And, studies should be made to find out the reasons for the current technology gap, and therefore, to implement solutions to improve the technology and competitiveness of the environmental pollution control industry in Korea.