DPP Taipei mayoral candidate Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) yesterday attacked a plan inspired by Mayor Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) to build a landfill site in the city's Neihu district.
"Why spend NT$10 billion building a landfill that would ruin our environment and threaten a potentially promising development in the Neihu Technology Park?" Lee said.
"The very same bucks could be better spent elsewhere to promote a `recycle all' policy, then not only would our beautiful environment be preserved but also the promising Neihu Technology Park would be safe," he said.
The Third Landfill was proposed by Ma in 1999 and is expected to be completed by June 2006. Construction for the landfill has not yet started and is awaiting an environmental evaluation.
Lee said that the goal of "recycle all and no more landfill" could be accomplished by recycling organic waste, enhancing cooperation with neighboring cities and counties, strengthening recycling resources and recycling non-combustible materials such as ditch-dirt, mire and ashes by using them to pave roads or make bricks.
In response to Lee's criticism, Shen Shu-hung (沈世宏), director of the city's Bureau of Environmental Protection, said that Lee was "irresponsible" in writing blank checks merely to attract votes. "Politicians shouldn't make promises [before an election] and then simply apologize for not being able to fulfill them," Shen said.
Regarding the city govern-ment's position on the Third Landfill, Shen said that all aspects of the project would be evaluated to minimize the impact on the environment.
Ma said that he has set the city the goal of ending its use of landfills by 2010 by increasing the proportion of garbage recycled and incinerating the rest.
"If we can avoid the need to build a new landfill, then we will not build one," he said.
According to the bureau, the city's three incinerators burn an average of 3,500 tonnes of trash a day.
RSS