Reducing the footprint of petrochemical production: an interview with Chun Hyun-sik

To address increasingly strict environmental regulations, manufacturing facilities have undergone progress in managing air pollutants, wastewater, and industrial waste. In this interview, Chun Hyun-sik at Lotte Chemical's Safety & Environment team explained how industrial pollution is monitored and controlled, and the evolving role of environmental management in modern industry.

Please tell us about your current job.

I currently work in environmental affairs at the Lotte Chemical Iwang plant. Since environmental affairs might sound a bit abstract, it might be hard to visualize exactly what I do, but I mainly handle issues related to air quality, water quality, and waste management. To put it simply, think about the air purifiers we have at home. Just like how we use air purifiers or water filters at home, we also have to handle waste disposal. At home, we handle these things on our own, but when you scale up to a factory level, a massive amount of dust, wastewater, and other byproducts are generated. 

My role is to provide support so that these substances can be released into the environment in a clean manner—through air pollution control facilities or wastewater treatment facilities—and to ensure that waste is disposed of legally and without any issues.

How do you manage waste, water quality, and air pollution? Are there any areas currently being prioritized for improvement?

To be more specific, regarding air pollution, we use prevention facilities like adsorption towers or regenerative thermal oxidizers (RTOs) to treat pollutants such as dust, SOx, and NOx. We help treat those kinds of pollutants, but it’s not just a matter of installing the equipment because we also have to ensure that the concentrations are kept within the required limits. So for example, with dust, there are emission standards that require it to be managed below 40 ppm. We have to periodically verify compliance with these standards, even through self-monitoring—and even though it’s called self-monitoring, we still have to conduct the measurements.

We also have to legally comply with the required treatment cycles, determining how often these processes must be performed. In our petrochemical company, we have a lot of equipment like extruders, injection molding machines, and dryers used to make plastics. For each piece of equipment, if we need to treat dust appropriate to its use, we have to install a dust collector. And if we need to treat gases, we have to connect things like adsorption towers or scrubbers. And for things like hazardous gases, we have to use an RTO. We also play a role in properly matching these systems. Furthermore, for each facility, we must obtain the necessary permits and report them to the city hall or the Environmental Agency.

Just maintaining the air quality involves this much work, and when it comes to wastewater, we’ve already established wastewater treatment plants. You’ve probably heard of things like BOD and COD—we manage the concentrations of those substances, add the necessary chemicals, and if there’s too much sludge buildup, we perform dredging to remove it. So, you can think of it as controlling a wide variety of factors like that.

And as you know, there are also people who manage greenhouse gases. While environmental engineers handle that, they collaborate with public works teams and others responsible for facilities to reduce energy consumption in those systems, which is actually another way to reduce greenhouse gases. By collaborating on these efforts, we’re actively working to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Similarly, regarding waste—which is typically discarded, incinerated, or landfilled—we’re exploring better disposal methods. Instead of simple incineration, we’re now recovering the heat from the incineration process and using it as an energy source. By handling it this way, we’re not only saving money but also finding ways to improve energy efficiency—rather than just focusing on greenhouse gas reduction—which is another part of our work.

It sounds like you’re doing a lot of sustainable work. You mentioned scrubbers earlier. With advancements in the technology of pollution control facilities, including scrubbers, are there any developments that could have a more positive impact on the environment?

Actually, from an environmental engineering perspective, the technology has stabilized to a certain extent, and the technology itself for processing this more efficiently isn’t really advancing that much right now. At our facility, for example, we’re currently only using adsorption towers and dust collectors. If we were to prioritize efficiency, we could do more, but from our facility’s perspective, we have to consider costs very carefully. So, in a way, as an environmental engineer at this facility, I face a bit of a dilemma: if we were to seek out more advanced technologies and use expensive equipment, we could certainly achieve much greater emission reductions.

But now that we’re a business that needs to turn a profit, we have to consider those financial aspects. When we factor that in, it seems like meeting certain legal standards is becoming a necessity. Since the equipment needed to meet those standards is relatively inexpensive, it seems like companies are only going to the extent of meeting those minimum requirements—they don’t seem to be investing in more expensive equipment or advanced technology beyond that.

That’s something everyone always mentions—they say technology has advanced a lot, but there’s a lack of support or national investment.

That’s right. For example, if emission standards were to be lowered or made stricter, there would be some incentive for us to invest more in technology. However, we are well aware that our industry has been feeling the burden since the standards were lowered to a certain extent, so they aren’t being lowered any further. We’re maintaining the current standards to a certain extent, so there’s no separate incentive for technological advancement. Plus, even if technology were to advance further, there’s a question of whether it could truly address all the issues. And, in fact, compared to other countries, South Korea’s standards are already quite strict. So considering all that, it seems we’re just maintaining the current level for now.

Water quality management and waste management might have a more direct impact on neighborhoods right next to those factories. When such a factory is established, do the waste products it generates lead to direct opposition from citizens or residents?

Well, in my experience, there hasn’t been any so far. There aren’t actually that many residential homes around our research institute, so we don’t receive many complaints about this kind of thing. However, there was one instance, for example. For instance, at our waste storage facility, since we apply heat to the waste, it sometimes catches fire. This led to a report from a nearby shop—not a residence, but a shop—stating that they smelled an unusual burning odor. We investigated it, but that’s the extent of it. 

For example, at some of our other factories, there are residential areas nearby. Even though it’s a factory, there are some really unexpected changes. People don’t usually live on the factory grounds, so when they do, they’re immediately noticeable. For instance, when they burn RTO, you can see flames shooting out, and even though they call it steam, you can see all that smoke-like stuff too. Because of this, people often report it, thinking it probably isn’t doing them any good. So, there are especially more reports from places like factories.

For instance, take power plants—like those in the Seoul metropolitan area—where steam is released like this. Then, from the apartments, you can constantly see that steam. People will naturally ask, “Is this really just steam?” And when complaints keep coming in about things like that, the environmental team has to respond to them. We have to explain that it really is just simple steam. So, we measure it once a week to show that these specific components aren’t being emitted, and we spend a lot of time persuading people and addressing those kinds of concerns.

So you mentioned earlier that you also work closely with the team responsible for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. How does that collaboration work?

Well, I don’t currently have much need to reduce greenhouse gases, so we’re not actually doing that at our facility. But in the case of factories, are you familiar with the greenhouse gas emissions trading system? Basically, a certain amount of emissions is allocated, and if we exceed that, we have to buy emission credits, and if we have a surplus, we can sell them—you know, things like that.

When we consider these factors, if our emissions get too high, it’s not good for our bottom line. So, when there’s a need to reduce emissions, the energy team looks at it from the perspective of “let’s try to cut this down.” They work with the operations team or facilities team to identify which equipment is emitting the most and where the greatest potential for reduction lies. Then, the actual implementation of those projects might be handled by the environmental team or the technical process team —though I suppose that varies slightly depending on the department and company. So, we tend to focus on reducing emissions largely for economic reasons.

Finally, looking ahead to the near future, are there any major environmental challenges or particularly difficult hurdles that the Environment Team is striving to overcome?

The biggest challenge for the Environment Team right now is actually air quality management. I mean, water quality and wastewater treatment are all stable, and we can just sell off the waste, but with air quality, every single change requires a massive investment. And technically speaking, for example, the law requires that we install a device capable of monitoring the concentration of certain pollutants on equipment like RTOs.

But when you actually install that, there’s a technical limitation—for some technical reason—where the actual output values from the RTO, if the sensor is placed in that specific location, absolutely cannot meet the required standards. So, while this is technically a technical issue, there are clearly some policy flaws involved as well. There are aspects where we have to fight with the government, but usually, air quality issues tend to be quite difficult.

Air handling systems are inherently risky facilities—RTOs are no exception, as they involve equipment that emits flames. And in the case of dust collectors, since they continuously draw in air, dust can dry out and generate significant heat, potentially causing fires. That’s why air management is generally quite difficult.

Yes, regarding those issues, I haven’t really given much thought to how I could technically improve things in my current situation. Since I’m still at the assistant manager level, I haven’t really thought much about it yet. However, if we face difficulties or risks in the future due to such situations, I’ll need to use certain channels—for example, the Petrochemical Industry Association—to address these issues.