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Controversial incinerators ready to open in 2005: EPA

The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) says two incinerator projects which were once halted due to contractors' financial difficulties are should be open for operation in 2005.

Activists say it is ironic that the agency is pledging to promote sustainable development while it sticks to its burn-oriented policies.

The EPA says Japan's Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has pro-mised to finish construction of a NT$2.276 billion waste incinerator in Ilan County by August 2005.

The Japanese firm won the bid last February. At the time, PFP Legislator Hsieh Chang-chieh (謝章捷) criticized the agency's support for the company, whose right to bid on public construction projects had been suspended for 12-months by the Public Construction Commission in December 2001 because of problems in other public projects.

Environmental activists asked the commission last year about the Ilan project, but according to George Cheng (鄭益明), executive general of the Taiwan Watch Institute, they were told that the commission wasn't in charge of incinerator-related projects, the EPA was.

"I wonder if the EPA could ensure the quality of the incinerator," Cheng said.

Agency officials said that the construction project has been proceeding smoothly due to local residents' awareness of the importance of the incinerator to Ilan County's waste management.

The other project that activists are unhappy about is the NT$2.3 billion incinerator being built in Keelung City by Japan's Ebara Corp and a Taiwanese company.

EPA officials said the Keelung incinerator would be finished by May 2005.

Officials said the EPA promotes build-own-operate and build-operate-transfer incinerator projects in order to reach its goal of burning 90 percent of household waste.

Activists said that the EPA has not revised its burn-oriented waste management policy since last October, when legislators were urged by 102 environmental groups to reject the agency's proposed incinerator budget.

"We don't think the EPA is sincere about promoting sustainable development because it tends to be perfunctory even when the criticism grows louder," Cheng said.

In the 1990s the agency estimated that by next year it would have 36 incinerators in operation, capable of burning 30,400 tonnes of municipal solid waste per day.

However, agency statistics show that by 2001, 19,886 tonnes of household waste was generated nationwide per day, less than the 21,000-tonnes capacity of the 19 existing incinerators.

The agency has also been criticized for years for failing to properly manage incinerator residue.

Cheng said that anti-incinerator activists are planning to hold a huge demonstration in Taipei early next month to highlight the irony of the EPA's waste-management policies.
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