The nation's first eco-industrial parks will be established this year in Kaohsiung County and Hualien County, the Environmental Pro-tection Administration (EPA) announced yesterday.
To promote waste-to-energy industries, the EPA has allocated NT$256.8 million for selecting three local authorities to build three eco-industrial parks in the north, center and south of the country.
After three months of evaluation, the agency has chosen two sites from seven that were put forth by local authorities.
One park will be located in Kaoshiung County's Benchao Industrial Zone and the other in Fenglin, Hualien County.
Officials said that authorities in the two counties were anxious to promote regional development by adopting long-term strategies, such as building infrastructure nearby.
The EPA says the eco-industrial parks would introduce foreign advanced environmental technologies and integrate local environmental professionals.
EPA officials said that among the industries to be located in the parks would be companies that recycle reusable materials com-mercially, are involved in energy-efficient R&D and manufacture environmentally friendly products.
"In Kaohsiung County, industries in the park can be linked to existing facilities for hazardous industrial waste treatment in the Benchao Industrial Zone," Liu Chug-chun (
Liu said that several foreign environmental-engineering companies from Singapore, Australia and France have inquired about investment opportunities in the new parks. These companies are involved in recycling waste electronic appliances, managing organic waste, refining metals and other operations.
Liu said that in the future eco-industrial parks would be devoid of emissions and that industrial firms will jointly take the lead to achieve the goal of creating a sustainable society.
The construction of the two eco-industrial parks will begin in July and companies will be able to establish factories in them at the end of this year.
EPA officials said that NT$12 billion from the private sector and NT$5 billion from the government would be invested in the two parks over the next 10 years, which would create NT$35 billion in business value each year.
Officials said the two parks could lead to the creation of 3,000 job opportunities.
EPA officials said they would still encourage authorities in central Taiwan to file an application to build an eco-industrial park, by which waste-to-energy industries would be further promoted. No applications from the center of the country have yet been received.
When all three proposed parks are completed, officials said, the government would spend less than NT$2.5 billion to treat waste and turn 2.5 million tonnes of waste into useful resources each year.
Many countries have built eco-industrial parks to promote waste-to-energy related industries, including Denmark, the US, Canada, Spain, the Netherlands and Japan.
Taiwan will be the second nation in Asia to build such facilities and the EPA will model the eco-industrial parks on Japan's eco-towns.
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