Concerns rise amid delay in handling hazardous mercury waste

Despite the designation of medical devices containing mercury as hazardous waste a year ago in South Korea, these devices have been left unhandled with no specific actions taken to date.

According to data submitted by the Ministry of Environment to Representative Lim Lee-za of the ruling People Power Party on Sunday, there were a total of 25,528 medical devices containing mercury that remained undisposed nationwide as of July 2023.

These medical devices containing mercury were supposed to have been disposed of by July, as per the Minamata Convention on Mercury that Korea signed in 2014. The Minamata Convention is a multilateral environmental agreement that addresses activities related to the handling of mercury pollution, explicitly outlining the entire process, including production, storage, use, discharge, and disposal of mercury and mercury compounds. Following the signing, the Korean government revised the subordinate regulations of the national waste management law to establish standards for the disposal of mercury-containing waste in July 2020, which came into effect in July 2021.

The Ministry of Environment suspended the ban on use for one year, citing that there was only one company capable of handling mercury-containing medical devices in Korea. Even though the number of companies capable of handling mercury waste has not increased since then, the Ministry of Environment stated that waste handling will be completed by 2024.