Garbage floating from the east coast of China is jeopardizing environmental quality in the Matsu Islands, say Lienchiang County officials, who want the Environmen-tal Protection Administration (EPA) to help fund a protective boom of barrels.
According to the the county's Environmental Protection Bureau, about 296 tonnes of waste from Fujian Province was collected by sanitation workers in Matsu last year. Nearly three-quarters of it, or 216 tonnes, was wood, straw, leaves, seaweed and other natural materials flushed 30km down the Min River in Fujian.
Chen Yu-li (陳玉利), a specialist with the Environmental Protection Bureau, said other kinds of waste included plastic medical apparatus, clothes, plastic bottles, metal cans, glass bottles and the bodies of animals such as chickens, pigs and sheep.
Sometimes human bodies have been found, Chen said.
More floating waste from China arrives in Matsu between November and January because of the wind direction in winter, Chen said. Heavy rain during the typhoon season also boosts the amount of garbage from China.
"We predict that what we can collect is less than half of all the floating waste originating in Fujian," Chen said.
Environmental officials said that voluntary activities to clean beaches had been unable to cope with the sea of garbage.
Last October, some residents of Nioujiao Village in Nankan, one of the major islands of Matsu that is particularly prone to floating Chinese waste, came up with a new way to protect their environment: They bound barrels together to form a floating boom about 300m from the coast.
Residents still need to collect the garbage blocked by the boom and take it to an incinerator, but at least it doesn't get to shore, and there may be other benefits.
"In addition to blocking garbage, these waste barrels wrapped in nets can offer places for plankton to stick to," said Marina Chang (鄭麗慧), who has worked on community-based activities in Nioujiao for a decade to improve environmental quality.
"Thus, these barrels might inadvertently become ideal places to raise shellfish and shrimps," she said.
Chen Hsiu-hua (陳秀華), the bureau's director-general, said the EPA should carry out a study on the unprecedented environmental issue.
"We need more financial support for the community-based project to fight against pollutants from nearby Chinese cities and towns, where environmental facilities and regulations are out-of-date compared to ours," Chen Hsiu-hua said.
He said high-level government agencies dealing with cross-strait affairs and diplomatic issues had to face the worrisome environmental situation in the offshore islands, including Matsu and Kinmen.
"Actually we've communicated with China's Fujian Province face to face on the environmental issue for years but have not seen a significant improvement yet," he said.
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