The government should drop the maximum tolerable daily intake of dioxin to 4 picograms per kilogram of body weight, a government advisory panel said in a report released Monday.
For the first time, coplanar PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), toxic substances similar to dioxin, will also fall under the new standard. The recommendations of the joint panel, which is composed of advisory panels to the Health and Welfare Ministry and the Environment Agency, are to be presented to the Cabinet for approval Friday.
Japan emits the most dioxin into the air among the 15 industrialized countries that have compiled national inventories of such emissions, according to a recently released study by the United Nations Environment Program.