KOROn scorching days like these, leaving plastic bottled water outside for a long time can cause carcinogens to seep into the water. Therefore, starting today, regulations have changed requiring bottled water to be stored indoors or covered when kept outdoors. However, enforcement of the rules has been delayed for two years.
Morning Zoom-In, with Jang Se-man, Senior Reporter on Climate and Environment.
Amid heat exceeding 30 degrees Celsius (86 degrees Fahrenheit), bottled water is piled up in front of a convenience store.
When touched by hand, the bottles are warm to the touch.
It is the same at another nearby convenience store, where bottled water placed on outdoor display shelves is directly exposed to sunlight.
Measuring the temperature with a thermal imaging camera, the surface temperature rose up to 46 degrees Celsius (115 degrees Fahrenheit).
This happens because there is a lack of space to store goods inside the stores.
[Convenience Store Employee: (Bottled water) takes up space anyway, and it can inconvenience movement (inside the store), so (that's why) usually putting everything outside is basically...]
The problem is that prolonged exposure to high-temperature direct sunlight in the midsummer can cause harmful substances to leach from the PET bottles.
According to an experiment conducted by the Board of Audit and Inspection four years ago, when bottled water was exposed to ultraviolet rays at 50 degrees Celsius (122 degrees Fahrenheit) for 15 days, group 1 carcinogens such as formaldehyde and the heavy metal antimony were leached.
This corresponds to storing it outside in natural conditions for 3.9 months, while actual bottled water is distributed for up to a year.
In the case of formaldehyde, there was no problem under domestic standards, but it exceeded the allowable limit under Japanese standards. Antimony, for which there is no domestic standard itself, exceeded allowable limits according to Australian standards.
When making PET bottles, formaldehyde and other substances are generated in the process of applying high temperature and high pressure to plastic raw materials, and these flow into the bottled water when exposed to ultraviolet rays at high temperatures for a long time.
[Kang Sang-wook, Professor of Chemical and Energy Engineering at Sangmyung University: When PET molecules are continuously exposed to ultraviolet rays, the (molecular) chains break. (As a result) the chemical substances generated are aldehydes.]
The Ministry of Climate has revised the regulations on the distribution and storage of bottled water, making indoor storage mandatory starting today to prevent exposure to sunlight, and requiring covers if they must inevitably be placed outdoors.
However, considering circumstances such as a lack of storage space, enforcement has been decided to be deferred for two years, and even the immediate application of the "mandatory covers" rule has been postponed, which is expected to spark controversy.
(Video Editing: Yu Mi-ra, VJ: Shin So-young)
※ Please note: This article was translated by AI and may contain errors.
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