• 한국해양학회지
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• v.28 no.2
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• pp.132-136
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• 1993

Attempt was made to identify potential pollutants in Korean Sean and to assess their environmental qualities. Existing pollution data for these Seas so scarce that environmental quality assessment was not possible. However, numerous pollutants were identified. Among them, heat and radioactivity from electric power plants, organic wastes from ocean dumping and land based sources, and accidentally spilled oils are suspected to be of most concern.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.135-150
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• 2010

At the Intergovernmental Meeting held in 1972, the London Convention was adopted to prevent marine pollution from dumping of wastes and other matter. After that, at the special meeting held at the Headquarters of the International Maritime Organization in 1996, the London Convention was revised to consider advances in technology of treatment and disposal of wastes and to reflect changes in understanding of marine environment and then the London Protocol was concluded. The London Protocol states more concrete management system for ocean dumping than the London Convention and also provides that the Meeting of Contracting Parties shall establish those procedures and mechanisms necessary to assess and promote compliance with the Protocol. With the London Protocol in force since 24 March 2006, the Meeting of Contracting Parties adopted the 'Compliance Procedures and Mechanisms (CPM) pursuant to Article 11 of the 1996 Protocol to the London Convention 1972' and established the Compliance Group in 2007. According to the CPM, members of the Compliance Group shall be nominated by Contracting Parties, based on equitable and balanced geographic representation of the five Regional Groups of the United Nations, and elected by the Meeting of Contracting Parties. In 2009, the Republic of Korea nominated a member of the Compliance Group to be subsequently elected by the Meeting of Contracting Parties with the approval of other states in Asia Group. Through the United Nations Regional Group System based on geographical identity or political affinity, Contracting Parties to the London Protocol are expected to form a voting bloc or to exchange information in meetings on the London Protocol. In this sense, it is noteworthy that the London Protocol introduced marine environmental management system for comprehensive prohibition of ocean dumping with exception of the so-called 'reverse-list' which had been earlier adopted by the 'Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment of the North-East Atlantic, 1992 (OSPAR)' whose contracting parties belonged to Western European and Other States Group. In recent years, the jurisdiction of London Protocol has been extended to protect and preserve the marine environment from all sources of pollution. This will make the United Nations Regional Group System play more important roles in the activities associated with the London Protocol. For this reason, this article has considered characteristics of the United Nations Regional Group System and has analyzed influences of this Regional Group System in meetings on the London Protocol. This could provide preliminary information for the Republic of Korea to give due consideration to the United Nations Regional Group System on the activities associated with the London Protocol.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.9 no.4
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• pp.193-202
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• 2006

The Consultative Meeting of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and other matter, 1972 (London Convention 1972) has requested to International Maritime Organization (IMO) Marine Environmental Protection Committee to collaborate and help clarify a boundary issue between International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Shops, 1973 as modified by the Protocol of 1978 (MARPOL) and the London Convention concerning 'dumping' versus 'discharges' during normal operations of ships in 2004, and subsequently established a Joint London Convention/MEPC Correspondence Group. The Contracting Parties to London Convention expressed their environmental concerns on the broad interpretation of the "cargo-associated wastes" by the States, which could be discharged by ships under MARPOL. Regulatory regimes for the cargo residues appear to vary among states. Some countries require fur ships to discharge their cargo wastes into the port reception facility and IMO also recommends doing so. This paper examines the related current national and international legal texts for the regulation of disposal of wastes from ships in order to analyze the current global concern on the marine pollution associated with waste discharge during operations of ships. In particular, we attempt to evaluate the likely marine environmental consequences arising from the disposal of cargo residue using an hypothetical case for the coal cargo residue among bulk cargos in this paper, since location, magnitude and frequency of the discharge of coal cargo residues into the sea adjacent to Korean Peninsula are not readily available. The cargo residues may be discharged to the sea according to MARPOL 73/78; however, its marine environmental consequences can be significant depending upon the characteristics and amounts of wastes to be discharged. Also the public tolerance of the environmental consequences would be widely different among nations. Multilateral environmental agreements, in general, more strictly apply their rules if there are other options to disposal at sea, i.e. port reception facility in this case. Therefore, port reception facilities for the wastes generated by ships are recommended to be further constructed in major national ports in order to reduce the risk of environmental damages during the operations of ships.

• Journal of Environmental Science International
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• v.27 no.9
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• pp.737-742
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• 2018

Livestock manure treatments have become a more serious problem because massive environmental pollutions such as green and red tides caused by non-point pollution sources from livestock manures have emerged as a serious social issue. In addition, more food wastes are being produced due to population growth and increased income level. Since the London Convention has banned the ocean dumping of wastes, some other waste treatment methods for land disposal had to be developed and applied. At the same time, researches have been conducted to develop alternative energy sources from various types of wastes. As a result, anaerobic digestion as a waste treatment method has become an attractive solution. In this study has three objectives: first, to identify the physical properties of the mixture of livestock wastewater and food waste when combining food waste treatment with the conventional livestock manure treatment based on anaerobic mesophilic digestion; second, to find the ideal ratio of waste mixture that could maximize the collection efficiency of methane ($CH_4$) from the anaerobic digestion process; and third, to promote $CH_4$ production by comparing the biodegradability. As a result of comparing the reactors R1, R2, and R3, each containing a mixture of food waste and livestock manure at the ratio of 5:5, 7:3, and 3:7, respectively, R2 showed the optimum treatment efficiencies for the removal of Total Solids (TS) and Volatile Solids (VS), $CH_4$ production, and biodegradability.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.559-567
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• 2014

Since the ocean dumping of organic wastes is prohibited under the London Convention, the need for land treatment of food waste leachate (FWL) has significantly been growing in recent years. This study was conducted to use thermal solubilization to turn FWL into a form that can easily be degraded during the anaerobic digestion process, thereby reducing the percentage of solids and increasing the production of methane. To derive the optimal operating conditions of thermal solubilization, a laboratory-scale reactor was built and operated. The optimal reaction temperature and time turned out to be $190^{\circ}C$ and 90 min, respectively. The BMP test showed a methane production of 465 mL $CH_4/g$ $COD_{Cr}$ and a biodegradation rate of 90.1%. The production of methane rose by about 15%, compared with no the application of thermal solubilization. To reduce the solid content of FWL and improve the methane production, therefore, it may be helpful to apply thermal solubilization to pre-treatment facilities for anaerobic digestion.

• Journal of the Korea Organic Resources Recycling Association
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• v.27 no.1
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• pp.77-85
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• 2019

Biogasification is a technology that uses organic wastes to reproduce as environmental fuels containing methane gas. Biogasification has attracted worldwide attention because it can produce renewable-energy and stable land treatment with prohibit from landfilling and ocean dumping of organic waste. Biomethane is produced by refining biogas. It is injected into natural gas pipeline or used transportation fuel such as cars and buses. 90 bio-gasification facilities are operating in 2016, and methane gas production is very low due to it is limited to organic wastes such as food waste, animal manure, and sewage sludge. There are seven domestic biomethane manufacturing facilities, and the use of high value-added such as transport fuels and city-gas through upgrading biogas should be expanded. On the other hand, the rapid biogasification of organic wastes in domestic resulted in frequent breakdowns of facilities and low efficiency problems. Therefore, the problem is improving as technical guidance, design and operational technical guidance is developed and field experience is accumulated. However, while improvements in biogas production are being made, there is a problem with low utilization. In this study, the problems of biomethane manufacturing facilities were identified in order to optimize the production and utilization of biogas from organic waste resources. Also, in order to present the design and operation guideline of the gas pretreatment and the upgrading process, we will investigate precision monitoring, energy balance and economic analysis and solutions for on-site problems by facility.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.28 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2022

The effect of sediments in a waste dumping area on marine organisms was evaluated using sediment toxicity tests with a benthic amphipod (Monocorophium acherusicum) and bioluminescent bacterium (Vibrio fischeri) in accordance with the Korean Standard Method for Marine Wastes (KSMMW). Nine sites in the East Sea-Byeong, East Sea-Jeong, and Yellow Sea-Byeong areas were sampled from 2016 to 2019. The test results showed that the relative average survival rate (benthic amphipods) and relative luminescence inhibition rate (luminescent bacteria) were below 30%, which were judged to be "non-toxic." However, in the t-test, a total of 12 benthic amphipod samples (6, 1, 1, and 4 in 2016, 2017, 2018, and 2019, respectively) were significantly different (p<0.05) from the control samples. To identify the source of toxicity on benthic amphipods, a simple linear regression analysis was performed between the levels of eight heavy metals (Cr, As, Ni, Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn, and Hg) in sediments and the relative average survival rate. The results indicated that Cr had the highest contribution to the toxicity of benthic amphipods (p = 0.000, R2 = 0.355). In addition, Cr was detected at the highest concentration at the DB-85 station and exceeded the Marine Environment Standards every year. Although the sediments were determined as "not toxic" according to the ecotoxicity criteria of the KSMMW, the results of the statistical significance tests and toxicity identification evaluation indicated that the toxic effect was not acceptable. Therefore, revising the criteria for determining the toxic effect by deriving a reference value through quantitative risk assessment using species sensitivity distribution curves is necessary in the future.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Marine Environment & Energy
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• v.11 no.3
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• pp.138-149
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• 2008

Rapid accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for the past century leads to acidify the surface ocean and contributes to the global warming as it forms acid in the ocean and it is a green house gas. In order to curb the green house gas emissions, in particular carbon dioxide, various multilateral agreements and programs have been established including UN Convention of Climate Change and its Kyoto Protocol for the last decades. Also a number of geo-engineering projects to manipulate the radiation balance of the earth have been proposed both from the science and industrial community worldwide. One of them is ocean fertilization to sequester carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through the photosynthesis of phytoplankton in the sea. Deliberate fertilization of the ocean with iron or nitrogen to large areas of the ocean has been proposed by commercial sector recently. Unfortunately the environmental consequences of the large scale ocean iron fertilization are not known and the current scientific information is still not sufcient to predict. In 2007, the joint meeting of parties of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter, 1972 and 1996 Protocol (London Convention/Protocol) has started considering the purposes and circumstances of proposed large-scale ocean iron fertilization operations and examined whether these activities are compatible with the aims of the Convention and Protocol and explore the need, and the potential mechanisms for regulation of such operations. The aim of this paper is to review the current development on the commercial ocean fertilization activities and management regimes in the potential ocean fertilization activities in the territorial sea, exclusive economic zone, and high seas, respectively, and further to have a view on the emerging international management regime to be London Convention/Protocol in conjunction with a support from the United Nations General Assembly through The United Nations Open-ended Informal Consultative Process on Oceans and the Law of the Sea.

• Journal of the Korean GEO-environmental Society
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• v.10 no.2
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• pp.13-20
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• 2009

There have been increasing interests in the odor generation problems as concerns about the quality of life has been increased recently. Especially, approximately 67% of the odor complaints from environmental facilities are those from sewage treatment facilities and food waste treatment facilities. Moreover, sewage ocean dumping will be prohibited from 2012 by the international and domestic ocean laws, and thus, demand for alternative management plans is increasing. Therefore, it was first selected 5 sewage treatment facilities and 5 food waste treatment facilities where the amounts of waste are relatively immense in Busan, and collect their sludge samples. Then it was investigated the samples' physical and chemical characteristics through proximate analysis, elemental analysis, XRF analysis, and calorific value analysis. Finally, estimate the $H_2S$ emission rates were estimated in order to apply the results as the basic data for providing the fundamental solution for the oder complaints. As a result, the concentration of $H_2S$ in sewage sludge and in food waste treatment facility were 57.3 mg/kg and 19.7 mg/kg in average, respectively. Finally, the units of $H_2S$ in wastes stored in total 10 waste treatment facilities was estimated 16,017,910.0 mg/d.

• Journal of Korean Society of Environmental Engineers
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• v.34 no.2
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• pp.126-135
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• 2012

Republic of Korea designates a waste disposal site within the fishing zone administered jointly with Chin in the Yellow Sea. The issue of waste disposal at sea is subject to the 1996 Protocol to the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter commonly called London Protocol. China, one of the contracting parties declared that if China becomes a party to a dispute concerning the interpretation and application of the Protocol, the Arbitral procedure of the Protocol shall only be applied with written consent of the Government of China according to the Article 16.5 of the Protocol at the time of its accession. The Article allows any State may declare that, when it is a party to dispute about the interpretation or application of precautionary approach or polluter pay principle, its consent will be required before the dispute may be settled by means of the Arbitral procedure of the Protocol. This paper analyzes the legal basis of Chinese declaration and its implication to parties that may be in dispute with China using international precedents of similar nature and a game theory.