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Air pollutants are mainly emitted from the painting and casting processes in the form of paint particles, volatile organic compounds and sand particles. HMC strives to minimize air pollutants by continuously implementing strict internal pollution standards at 10~30% levels above domestic regulations.
The widespread use of clean energy optimizing the operations of the air pollution prevention equipment, and replacing iron-cast shops, which use massive amounts of sand to aluminum-cast shops, accounted for the annual emission amount totaling 1,151 tons, a 7.4% reduction compared to the previous year.


Category Unit Domestic Regulation Internal Standards Actual Discharge
S0X ppm 500(core manufacturing) 150 50~65
PM mg/sm³ 100 Electric Induction Furnaces:3
Other Facilities: 30		 2~3
2~15
HCL ppm 6.0(cupola) 1.2 0.3~0.6
HF ppm 3.0(cupola) 1.0 0.1~0.5
THC ppm
g/m²		 50(T/UP painting, oven)
90(vehicle)		 15
70		 3~8
65

Industrial wastewater during production is mainly attributable to the vehicle body cleaning process, and dust collector machining process. Sewage is mainly released from cafeterias, employee residential areas, restrooms, and shower rooms. HMC has installed and is implementing a consolidated wastewater treatment facility at each factory in its plants. In the Ulsan plant, wastewater is treated through 7 sub treatment facilities, 2 wastewater sewage treatment facilities and 1 wastewater treatment facility. The Asan plant and HMI operate on a zero discharge system.
In addition, the main managing indexes are as follows: Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), suspended substances, and normal hexane (N-H). In 2005, discharged water pollutants totaled 193 tons, a drop of 6% year-on-year. COD discharge, which increased in 2004, was drastically reduced while the discharge density of BOD, SS, and N-H discharges showed slight increases.

By collecting and purifying wastewater from production activities through a reverse osmosis system, the Asan plant self-supplies industrial water required for its own operations. For this purpose, the Asan plant installed a wastewater treatment complex in 1996, which was designed to treat industrial wastewater from industrial activities and sewage released from factories and residential areas.

The wastewater treatment complex comprises two processes: wastewater treatment and purification.

The wastewater treatment process consists of physical, chemical, and organic filtering procedures whereas the purification process includes a chelate agent, micro filtering, reverse osmosis, concentrated evaporation, and drying procedures. The water that is treated through the purification process is reused as industrial water. To ensure the self-sufficiency of the industrial water supply, HMC utilizes rain water collected from the Asan plant area. As the surface water supplements the industrial water through the pump system and pipes, the plant maintains 100% self-sufficiency. Any shortages in industrial water supplies are supplied in a self-sufficient manner through industrial wastewater and sewage retreatment processes.