Taipei County's fourth waste incinerator will be operating commercially by 2006, when problems resulting from increasing amounts of waste will be solved, environmental officials said yesterday.
According to the county's Environmental Protection Bureau, 3.6 million local residents produce 3,800 tonnes of household waste daily, while three operational incinerators in the county can only treat about 3,150 tonnes, which accounts for 82 percent of the waste.
Some of the county's household waste is dumped at Pali Municipal Landfill (八里垃圾掩埋場), which is also the destination of waste from public construction sites.
Because natural disasters such as typhoons and floods are happening more frequently, the county's waste management is becoming more challenging, officials said
"Though we are aware of the difficulties we face when the government proposes building a new waste incinerator -- such as land requisition and local opposition -- we will build one anyhow," said Chang Tzu-ching (
Chang said that the government decided to adopt a BOO (build-operate-own) model to encourage private enterprises to submit bids for the project.
The BOO model is a good way not only to improve the quality of public construction but also to relieve the government's financial difficulties, Chang said.
Chang said that when the incinerator operates commercially, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) will offer the operator a NT$1800 subsidy for each tonne of waste.
For anti-incinerator activists, Chang's announcement, which came only one day after environmentalists urged lawmakers to turn down a NT$3.7 billion budget proposal by the EPA to build waste incinerators for the next fiscal year, demonstrates that the government is fully prepared to implement the policy.
"We're sorry for the way governmental officials think. Now it's time to wake up the local residents, who are still unaware of the negative impacts created by waste incinerators," Herlin Hsieh (謝和霖) of Taiwan Watch Institute (看守台灣協會) told the Taipei Times yesterday.
Activists told the Taipei Times that that the EPA was taking advantage of local opposition by revising the burn-oriented waste management policy after canceling four incinerator projects in March.
"The cancellation was actually a result of strong local opposition encouraged by newly-elected local commissioners," Hsieh said.
Chen Lien-ping (
On the basis of EPA's original estimates, 36 incinerators would have been capable of burning 30,400 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day by the end of next year. The revised policy decreases the total capacity for treating waste by 3,250 tonnes per day.
Hsieh said that anti-incinerator groups from several counties had united in a bid to fight against what they called an irresponsible waste management policy because there would be insufficient waste to burn due to the promotion of recycling.
Today, hundreds of anti-incinerator activists will demonstrate in front of the Legislative Yuan to push lawmakers to turn down the EPA's proposal.
In order to further discuss future strategies, a national workshop for anti-incinerator activists will be held tomorrow in Meinung township, Kaohsiung County.
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