The Consumers’ Foundation yesterday said 14 percent of the 109 chain beverage shops and fast food stores it surveyed had not posted signs announcing disposable beverage cup recycling rewards in their stores, and three companies did not provide bring-your-own-cup discounts.
According to statistics provided by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) last year, about 1.5 billion disposable cups are used every year in the nation.
To reduce waste, the EPA announced an “Incentive Payments for Recycled Disposable Cups” policy in January last year, and the regulations were enacted on May 1.
According to the regulations, chain fast food stores, convenience stores and beverage shops must post signs informing customers that discounts are provided to those who bring their own cups, the EPA said,.
The EPA added that stores that do not provide such discounts should give a reward of NT$1 or NT$2 for each disposable cup recycled by customers.
However, the foundation’s latest survey of 109 chain stores, conducted in November and December last year, showed that 16 of them had not clearly informed customers of the disposable cup recycling rewards.
Consumers’ Foundation secretary-general Chen Chih-yi (陳智義) said that although most of the 16 stores did provide discounts to customers, the foundation feared clerks might neglect to inform the customers, since there was no clear written notification in the stores.
“We urge the companies to act in conformity with the regulations, since the government has already enforced them, and violation of the regulations will incur a fine of between NT$60,000 and NT$300,000,” Consumers’ Foundation chairperson Joann Su (蘇錦霞) said.
“We also urge the EPA to remind the companies of the regulation and urge consumers to pay attention to the material and usage instructions for improper use of the containers,” Su said.
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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