The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said it has established an Illegal Dumping Management System, which uses GPS on garbage trucks, security cameras on waste treatment facilities and satellite remote sensing technologies to combat illegal dumping.
Department of Waste Management director-general Wu Tien-chi (吳天基) said an information system for illegal dumping sites was set up in 2004 for environmental police units and local governmental agencies to report such sites and for the public to query where the locations of the sites.
“However, cases of illegal dumping continued, such as aluminum waste slag found illegally dumped near Highway No. 61 in Greater Kaoshiung last year,” Wu said.
The updated system integrates new monitoring technologies to provide precise information on the existing sites and to help prevent illegal dumping using strict surveillance devices, the EPA said.
The system is open to the public, environmental protection bureaus and judicial agencies to respond as quick as possible, Wu said.
About 160 sites that have not been cleaned up are listed in the system. The largest number of illegal sites, 51, were located in Greater Tainan, followed by Changhua County with 31. Wu said the reason so many sites were in these areas might be because of the large amount of industrial waste dumped along Greater Tainan’s Er-ren River (二仁溪) in the past and along rivers in Changhua County.
The EPA said it was unable to disclose the total amount of illegally dumped waste and detailed information on the 160 sites, only saying that the sites were undergoing clean up and that that figure would be announced in April.
Wu said a severe case in Greater Taichung contained more then 100,000 tonnes of waste at one site. In addition, Wu said a public hearing on modifying the draft regulations for managing the use of general waste — recycled ash from incinerators — and the key point of the modified draft regulation were to limit the use of recycled ash to indirect agricultural use (farmhouse and farm roads), but would strictly be prohibited for direct agricultural use (growing crops, rearing live stock, or cultivated farming).
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically
RSS