A total of 1.52 million recycled plastic bottles used to build a pavilion at the Taipei International Flora Expo will be taken apart and sent to elementary schools nationwide to raise environmental awareness, the building’s sponsor said yesterday.
The Far Eastern Group, commissioned by the Taipei City Government to build the EcoARK — a boat-shaped exhibition hall made of PET bottles — said it would work with the Ministry of Education to distribute the bottles to 100 elementary schools for “green use.”
Schools that were damaged by Typhoon Morakot in 2009 will be given priority, group chairman Douglas Hsu (徐旭東) said.
He said all the honeycomb-shaped PET bricks used to build the EcoARK will be reused in creative projects so local communities can join in on the environmentally friendly action.
For instance, he said, the bricks can be reassembled into bus stops, greenhouses, galleries or even sheds for keeping livestock.
“Since the bottles were collected from the public, we think it is best that the materials go back into the hands of the people,” Hsu said.
The group said the inspiration for EcoARK came from the large number of PET bottles recycled in Taiwan every year — about 90,000 tonnes.
EcoARK, also known as the Pavilion of New Fashion, attracted more than 2 million visitors at the expo. It was featured on the National Geographic Channel’s Megastructures, which was aired in 168 countries in 34 languages, with an estimated audience of 370 million.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
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