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Kaohsiung citizens fear pollution from new incinerators

About 100 residents of Kao-hsiung's Hsiaokang district yesterday protested against the planned construction of medical incinerators in their area.

The protesters said that they are worried about two incinerators under construction and another proposed facility, which is awaiting the city council's approval.

Although the three incinerators will be located inside an industrial zone, the protesters said that some of them actually live only a few meters from the construction sites.

Waving banners with the slogan "give us freedom from fear," protesters shouted that they were not second-class citizens who can be forced to live in a worsening environment.

The demonstration got the attention of the district's city councilors. The DPP's Kuo Wen-cheng (郭玟成) and independent Gian Gin-cheng (簡金城) told city officials that the district did not need a medical incinerator and that such a facility would only make residents live in fear of being infected.

The councilors added that major hospitals in the city, such as Chang Gung Memorial (長庚) and Veterans General (榮總), have their own incinerators, while private clinics replied on waste handlers in other counties.

The councilors also said that the devaluation of real estate in Hsiaokang was partly due to the medical waste incinerators that are being built there.

The city's environmental officials said it remained uncertain whether such incinerators could be operated effectively in the city.

It is also uncertain whether the two companies that received construction licenses from the Environmental Protection Agency for the first two incinerators will receive operating licenses from the local government.

"We will not issue any operating licenses until the builders can demonstrate in test runs that pollution from the incinerators meets national standards," Chang Feng-teng (張豐藤), Kaohsiung City's Environmental Protection Bureau chief, said yesterday.

Statistics show that more than 1,800 hospitals and clinics in the city generate about five tonnes of medical waste daily. The two incinerators under construction are expected to burn as much as 17 tonnes of waste daily.

Lin Chao-hong (林昭宏), one of the bureau's section chiefs, told the Taipei Times yesterday that the paperwork for the third incinerator's application procedure had been rejected earlier.

"I'm not saying that the city doesn't need more medical incinerators. In terms of waste management, it's better to treat waste domestically -- to avoid causing pollution over long transportation lines," Lin said.

Last year, hospitals and clinics in the city were forced to store medical waste in refrigerators for months after medical waste handlers were forced to shut down incinerators due to local opposition.

At the time, environmentalists and medical professionals said that the shortage of waste handlers would lead to an increase in illegal dumping.

Meanwhile, prosecutors and the police yesterday discovered medical waste which was secretly dumped with metal-tainted sludge more than a year ago in a reservoir near Yingko township, Taipei County.
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