South Korea Includes Nanosubstances in Ten-Year Plan

The South Korean Ministry of Environment released on January 18, 2011, the National Chemicals Control Basic Plan, which it intends to help it implement the United Nations’ sustainable chemical control rules under the 2006 Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM). According to the Ministry, the Plan will reduce the amount of human carcinogens released into the environment annually by 32 percent by 2020, and will expand the national toxicity information database by 2020 to cover 34,000 chemical substances, or 80 percent of some 43,000 known to be in circulation, up from the current level of 15 percent. Under the Plan, nanosubstances are among priority chemicals that will be subject to in-depth hazard assessment, exposure analysis, and safety studies.