• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
• /
• v.26 no.1
• /
• pp.1-9
• /
• 2010

Technology-Based Effluent Limitations (TBELs) is a permit limits for a pollutant that is based on the capability of a treatment technology to reduce the pollutant to a certain concentration. Widely practiced for regulations of industrial wastewater in US, TBELs has been accepted as an effective means that can achieve balanced goals between complete elimination of pollutants discharge and economic feasibility for industries. The review of TBELs application in US and the applicability of TBELs to the domestic industry categories was given in three papers. In the first paper, the development and practices of TBELs in US were reviewed including case studies. The developments of TBELs in US in the four major categories, the metal products & machinery, the petroleum refining, the porcelain enameling and the meat & poultry products were reviewed. The applicability of TBELs to the domestic industrial categories was also assessed. In the second paper, the pollution loads analysis for domestic industrial wastewater was conducted based on risk assessment indicator using Toxic Weighting Factors (TWFs). This is an essential part to determine the priority of TBELs application for the domestic industrial categories. In the last paper, the application of TBELs to the domestic industries was demonstrated through a case-study for the pulp/paper/paperboard category. Direct application of TBELs of US into the Korean regulation system may not be desirable because the specific goals and the environment for the regulations for the two countries may not be identical. For example, unlike US, Korea does not adopt the individual permit system for pollution sources. However, among the unproductive and exhaustive controversies over the uniform regulations regardless of the industrial categories in Korea, the introduction of the principles of TBELs are inevitable and more extensive study for applications of TBELs optimized for Korean regulation system will be necessary.