Loopholes exist in the management of industrial waste recycling and tighter upstream control is necessary, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), the Council of Agriculture and the Ministry of Economic Affairs said yesterday.
Environmental Protection Administration Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) told the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee the issue was complicated because the EPA is in charge of waste treatment under the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), while the ministry monitors industrial waste recycling based on the Regulations Governing Administration of Reuse of Enterprise Waste (Promulgated by the ministry) (經濟部事業廢棄物再利用管理辦法) and the council looks at feed additives according to the Administrative Law on Feed (飼料管理法).
Shen compared the alleged use of industrial copper sulfate in animal feed to a person using a knife made with recycled iron to commit murder.
The responsibility should not fall on the agency that allowed the iron to be recycled, he said.
Disappointed with the agencies’ reports, committee convener Tsai Chin-lung (蔡錦隆) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) said all three agencies had missed the point and failed to detail what specific measures would be implemented to prevent future problems.
While several legislators felt Shen’s metaphor was inappropriate, others said the agencies were trying to pass the buck instead of providing practical solutions.
Vice Minister of Economic Affairs Hwang Jung-chiou (黃重球) said the ministry had asked recycling companies to add instruction labels to their products so that users could easily understand the application limits of industrial copper sulfate.
The EPA will set up a video recording monitoring system within three months to gather information and evidence of how the industrial waste is being disposed, Shen said, adding that the EPA agreed that cross-departmental control measures should be taken in the future to patch up the loopholes in the current industrial waste management system.
The committee brought up a proposal in the afternoon, demanding that the EPA present a list of penalties within two weeks and cross-departmental control measures within a month. It said the council should also clarify the causes of why industrial copper sulfate had been added to animal feed.
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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