[Herald Economy = Reporter Yoo Jae-hoon] In the future, the management of the water purifier filter exchange cycle will be strengthened, and a professional certification agency will be in charge of quality inspection of water purifiers.

On the 10th, the Ministry of Environment announced a comprehensive plan to improve the safety management of water purifiers, including such contents.

The comprehensive measures, which will be implemented from the 11th, have been prepared by combining the tasks discovered by the joint public-private task force and the results of research services since the 2016 ice water purifier nickel detection incident.

According to the comprehensive plan, the Korea Water Technology Certification Institute, which will be established in the future, will take charge of the quality inspection of water purifiers that have been conducted by the Korea Water Purification Industry Cooperative, which has a water purifier manufacturer as a member company. The Korea Water Technology Certification Institute will be established in accordance with the "Water Management Technology Development and Water Industry Promotion Act" that will take effect in June next year.

It is mandatory to disclose related information such as performance of quality inspection institutions and commission income and expenditure, and to enhance transparency by strengthening guidance and inspection. It will also strengthen the deliberation of the Water Purifier Quality Review Committee, which will make a final decision on whether the water purifier quality test is suitable, increasing the number of experts in each field from two to four, including structure, material, follow-up management, and labeling.

Comprehensive deliberation shall be conducted only on products that have passed the deliberation by field, and the consecutive terms of commissioned members shall be limited to two.

The standardization of the water purifier hygiene management system was also included.

In the case of water purifier filters, it was decided to prepare a standard exchange cycle calculation method according to functions such as adsorption and filtration and types such as activated carbon and reverse osmosis membranes. Until now, the filter exchange cycle has displayed the results of random experiments by the manufacturer on the product, but in the future, the exchange cycle according to the standard exchange cycle calculation method should be displayed.

Safety management of additional functions such as ice making and beverage manufacturing of complex water purifiers, which have recently become popular, will also be strengthened. As a result, the combined water purifier can be sold only when it undergoes a separate quality test for additional functions as well as water purification functions.

In December last year, the Ministry of Environment submitted an amendment to the Drinking Water Management Act to the National Assembly that requires additional functions of complex water purifiers to be inspected for quality, and is preparing a specific quality inspection system through research services.

In addition, the comprehensive measures will supplement the hygiene and safety aspects of water purifier product guides to protect consumers and make standard guides tailored to the level of consumers' eyes. Filters, water intake tips, connections, water storage tanks, and flow path pipes will be changed to simple structures so that consumers can directly replace, clean, and sterilize water purifier parts, and information provision to consumers will also be strengthened.

igiza77@heraldcorp.com