The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said that the efforts made by publicly run agencies to use and procure environmentally friendly products were commendable.
To set the pace for environmental protection efforts, the Cabinet had set a goal for this year whereby 80 percent of procurement made by governmental agencies would be green products, EPA officials said.
"Green" procurement by governmental agencies as a whole totaled NT$3.464 billion [US$107.2 million] in the first half of the year, an increase of NT$26 million compared with the same period last year, the officials said.
Next year -- when the government's "green procurement" will aim to reach 83 percent -- more public agencies, including the Presidential Office, Legislative Yuan, Judicial Yuan, Examination Yuan and Control Yuan will also be included in the "green procurement" and "green consumption" initiative.
The initiative starts on Jan. 1, EPA officials said.
Privately run companies and private organizations will also be required to jump on the bandwagon on Jan. 1, they noted.
In related news, a report sponsored by the EPA has shown the concentration of dioxin in car exhaust exceeds that of incinerator exhaust in some cases.
The report prompted Chang Moo-been (張木彬), the head of National Central University's Graduate Institute of Environmental Engineering, to suggest that those who are exposed to traffic exhaust on a regular basis, such as commuters and scooter riders, should consider wearing high-filtration face masks.
The study, conducted by Cheng Shiu University's super micro mass research and technology center, tested diesel vehicles, sports utility vehicles and scooters.
According to the preliminary results, the average SUV tested emits 0.069 nanograms of dioxin per cubic meter of exhaust, with one vehicle emitting as much as 0.147 nanograms.
Of the three diesel models tested, emission ranged from 0.037 to 0.24 nanograms per cubic meter of exhaust.
Results from the scooter tests have not been released yet, although assistant professor Wang Lin-chi (
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching