Hundreds of Taipei County residents yesterday protested against plans to create a landfill site for incinerator residue near the Chulun River
Waving banners, protesters from Sanshia township demonstrated in front of the Taipei County Government's environmental bureau, arguing that pollutants from the toxic residue collected from incinerators would contaminate the water.
"It is definitely inappropriate to establish a landfill in such a clean place," said Tsai Huang-lung (蔡黃隆), a Taipei County councilor.
About 20,000 people living in the mountains near the river rely on its water for drinking, cleaning and irrigation.
Yesterday's demonstration followed a similar protest last month when the Taipei County Government held its first meeting to review the environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the site.
Local environmental officials, however, said yesterday that the proposed location was not listed as a protected area for water resources.
"Potential environmental effects on water quality will be carefully reviewed by our EIA members," said Yang Chih-hung
The landfill would cover 38.5 hectares in a remote valley in Sanshia. Officials said the builder would adopt advanced technologies from the US to ensure the quality of the landfill.
Taipei County generates 3,700 tonnes of household waste a day. Incinerators burn 3,200 tonnes a day, and the rest goes to landfill sites.
Residues from incinerators are put in a landfill in Pali township, which is expected to be full in two to three years, prompting the need for a new one.
Environmentalists said the need for special landfill sites for incinerator residue was not a problem unique to Taipei County and other areas of the country were having trouble finding suitable locations.
Although the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has encouraged local governments to build incinerators since the late 1990s, activists said, it failed to help local governments find appropriate sites to build landfills for the residues they produce.
According to Chen Jian-zhi (陳建志), director of the waste policy committee of the Green Citizens' Action Alliance, the burning-oriented waste-management policy has resulted in a low recycling rate of 14.5 percent in Taiwan.
Chen told the Taipei Times yesterday that it was time to push the EPA to focus on promoting waste reduction and recycling rather than building incinerators on the densely populated island.
"We hope the EPA can shift subsidies from projects to build new incinerators to those aiming to reduce waste," Chen said.
Anti-incinerator activists, Chen said, are planning a huge demonstration in early March in Taipei to highlight the irony of the burning-oriented waste-management policy.
Chen said that foreign support would be incorporated into the activity through existing channels, including Waste Not Asia, the first Asian transnational environmental group to focus opposition against waste incineration, and the US-based Global Anti-Incinerator Alliance, an international alliance aiming to end waste incineration.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods