Premier promotes plastics policy

Carrying a reusable shopping bag, Premier Yu Shyi-kun yesterday visited a department store in downtown Taipei to lend his support to a controversial environmental policy that limits the use of plastic bags and dining utensils.

Yu used the bag, designed by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), to take away chocolates he had bought for his wife on Valentine's Day. He said that the policy was only a minor inconvenience to consumers.

"The bearable inconvenience, however, will ensure clean fields for our future generations," he said.

The premier, who heads the National Council for Sustainable Development, said that the implementation of the policy was a concrete action which was intended to promote sustainable development in Taiwan.

President Chen Shui-bian (陳水扁) has designated this year as the country's First Year of Sustainable Development.

Yu said that the country would consume 200,000 fewer plastic bags each year as a result of the policy, which he said was supported by more than 80 percent of consumers.

Yu, accompanied by EPA Administrator Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌), Minister of Economic Affairs Lin Yi-fu (林義夫) and Council of Labor Affairs Chairwoman Chen Chu (陳菊), inspected several shops at the department store.

He dismissed criticism that the policy would raise unemployment and damage the economy, saying that measures to ameliorate the policy's effects had been taken.

"It's nonsense to say that the government fights for economic revival and creates unemployment problems at the same time," Yu said.

Hau said the agency had helped stores and restaurants affected by the measures by offering subsidies for the installation of dishwashers and encouraging consumers to bring their own utensils.

Starting tomorrow, the EPA will begin issuing warning notices to those who violate the policy, with fines of at least NT$60,000 being dished out one month later to those who continue to ignore the new measures.

According to Chen Hsiung-wen (陳雄文), director-general of the EPA's Bureau of Solid Waste Management, the priority targets are department stores and large chain stores. Small restaurants would be inspected later, Chen said.

"This doesn't mean that owners of small restaurants are exempted from punishment," Chen said, adding that the agency was merely giving them a little longer to comply with the measures.

Some restaurant owners, however, are having trouble finding alternatives to disposable plastic tableware.

Kuo Shih-tsong (郭世聰), who runs a small restaurant near Taipei Station, bumped into Hau at the department store and complained to the EPA head that he had for several weeks been having trouble ordering paper dining utensils.

"Some merchants stock up on paper dining utensils in order to raise the price," Kuo said.

According to Kuo, paper utensils cost up to three times more than plastic ones.

Hau promised to investigate the matter, even though EPA officials said that only 17 merchants selling paper dining utensils had promised to cooperate with the agency by not raising their prices.

The EPA is investigating another 31 merchants who have raised their prices.

Unemployed plastics-industry workers affected by the implementation of the policy said they plan to hold a demonstration at the end of this month. They will be joined by those who have been fined for not complying with the new measures.