The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday urged people thinking of what they will buy with the government’s consumer vouchers next year to opt for Green Mark products to protect the environment.
“A fifth of the nation’s pollution come from volatile organic compounds [VOC] emitted from consumer products such as nail polish, incense, white-out, paint, paper money [for religious rituals] and air-fresheners,” EPA Director-General of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control Yang Ching-shi (楊慶熙) said. “When these things evaporate and are inhaled by people, the substances can cause harm the respiratory system or irritate the skin.”
The number of bad air quality days has been reduced in recent years, but VOCs — most commonly benzene, toluene and formaldehyde — still contribute to smog formation, Yang said.
“When VOCs and nitrogen oxide from factories and motor vehicles react under the sun, smog — or ground level ozone — is formed,” Yang said.
Unlike the ozone layer that protects the Earth from ultraviolet rays, ground level ozone causes asthma, chest discomfort and damage to lung tissue, he said.
Though 44 percent of non-methane hydrocarbons (NMHC) emitted in the country come from factories and 29 percent from transportation, 19 percent of the pollutants come from burning incense and candles or painting homes or fingernails, Yang said.
The EPA plans to regulate VOC content levels in consumer products the way Hong Kong, Canada and California have done and it will try to persuade the public to choose VOC-free or low-VOC products, Yang said.
“We encourage people to refrain from using VOC-laden products and choose alternatives instead,” he said.
“For example, instead of using air-fresheners, people can deodorize with coffee grounds or sliced lemons. They can opt for water-based paints when decorating homes and offices, and choose adhesives that are environmentally friendly,” he said.
If people must use products containing VOCs, they should make sure that their space is well ventilated, he said.
“A good way to identify these products is from the smell — most products containing VOCs have a sharp and distinct odor or fragrance,” Yang said.
Products that easily dry out when left open to the air or those that cannot be easily washed out by water may also contain VOCs, he said.
“As the government is giving out NT$3,600 in consumer vouchers to each Taiwanese next year, we are urging people to spend their vouchers wisely and on products that will not harm the environment,” Yang said.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
RSS