"I chose to bring my own chopsticks mainly for health reasons," says Julie Ma (
"I am also doing this to protect the environment," she said.
Based on a survey from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), 36.3 percent of interviewees reported they prepare their own utensils when they eat out, while 25.1 percent said they sometimes or rarely do so, and 36.5 percent said they never bring their own utensils.
The administration has used the figure to gauge the degree to which their policy has been implemented.
On a five point scale where five indicates full implementation, the policy encouraging the use of self-prepared utensils only scored 3.1.
The report came after the administration started banning the use of disposable utensils in government agency cafeterias in July last year. Last September, the administration asked school cafeterias to stop giving out disposable utensils for dine-in customers.
Meanwhile, the survey found that other policies, such as separating recyclables, carrying used plastic bags or shopping bags and water conservation have all achieved a score over 4.
The EPA survey was conducted between April 18 and May 8. A total of 4,734 valid samples were collected. They were evaluated at a 95 percent confidence level, with a margin of error of 1.42 percent.
As well as investigating the level of implementation for each policy, the survey also asked interviewees about their perceptions on issues related to air and water quality, noise and environmental hygiene.
Close to 60 percent of the surveyed population reported that they have been affected by pollution coming from the exhaust of motor vehicles in the past year.
Forty nine percent of the interviewees said they have been troubled by noise mainly from traffic as well as from neighbors living nearby.
Close to 70 percent said that they drink either filtered or bottled water, particularly respondents from southern Taiwan.
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
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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