Liu said that people should not be so frightened by industrial waste just because it doesn't come from households.
He said that most industrial waste burnt at the plant includes waste from restaurants, stationery from small enterprises, clothes and other such things.
"Often industrial waste isn't much different from household waste," Liu said.
Horst Korner, general manager of Germany-based Babcock Borsig Power, told the Taipei Times that the ratio of industrial waste to household waste should be studied in advance if the mixture is sent to incinerators originally designed for household waste only.
Taking the plant under construction in the Yungkang township of Tainan County as an example, Korner said that mixing 20 percent industrial waste with 80 percent household waste should not be a problem.
In the Hsiaokang District of Kaohsiung City, an incinerator with a daily treatment capacity 1,800 tonnes burns about 600 tonnes of industrial waste along with 700 tonnes of household waste per day, officials said. The industrial waste accounts for 46 percent of the total amount.
Kaohsiung desperately needs industrial waste to keep operating, because the city produces only 1,400 tonnes of waste daily but operates two public incinerators with a combined capacity of 2,700 tonnes per day.
Chang Juu-en (
RSS