Request a Demo
On July 21, 2022, South Korea’s National Institute of Chemical Safety (NICS) consulted on the draft amendments to the Regulation on Specific Handling Standards for Hazardous Chemicals (hereinafter referred to as the Regulation). The handling standards for each hazardous chemical is stipulated in the Annex of NICS Announcement No.2022-77, which consists of 1147 items (360 more than its 2018 version). One item is for one hazardous chemical, detailing the chemical’s name and CAS number (if any), given number (if any), and the corresponding handling criteria, etc. Any comments are welcome before August 10, 2022. Once these amendments are adopted and released to the public, they will take effect immediately.
The Regulation was formulated based on the Article 13 of Chemical Control Act (CCA) and the Article 8 and Appendix 1 (Criteria for handling hazardous chemicals) of CCA Enforcement Rules, detailing requirements for the handling of hazardous chemicals, including toxic chemicals, restricted chemicals, prohibited chemicals and accident precaution chemicals designated by the authority According to the last revision by NICS Announcement No.2018-01, the NICS would review the appropriateness of the Regulation and make improvements every three years counting from January 1, 2018. As of 2022, more and more chemicals have been designated as hazardous chemicals. Thus, the NICS proposed to:
Update the provisions and standards for handling hazardous chemicals, i.e., toxic chemicals, restricted chemicals, prohibited chemicals and accident precaution chemicals that were designated by the corresponding announcements.
Reorganize the content that is overlapping, conflicting or inconsistent with the current rules (see Appendix 5 of CCA Enforcement Rules) for the installation and management of hazardous chemicals handling facilities.
Add safety standard – ‘Avoid Contact with Water’ for handling water-reactive chemicals. *For example, thionyl chloride (CAS No. 7719-09-7), which in contact with water may generate hydrochloric acid (HCI, hazardous chemical).
Clarify some unclear phrases and terms.
For more details, please refer to Annex to NICS Announcement No.2022-77 (in Korean). Noted that amendments are marked in red or bolded in black.
