Taipei topped the list for the number of nuisance cases reported last year, with noise pollution ranking first among the complaints, according to annual statistics released by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday.
According to the statistics released by the EPA’s Environmental Protection Services Center, a total of 227,931 nuisance cases were reported last year — an increase of 20,486 compared with 2011, the EPA’s Bureau of Environmental Inspection said.
The number of reported pollution cases has steadily increased since a national reporting system was established, from 85,768 cases in 1998 to more than 200,000 cases in the past two years, the bureau said.
Statistics showed that Taipei ranked No. 1 in the number of reported cases, with 61,618 cases last year, followed by New Taipei City (新北市) with 55,821 cases and Greater Taichung with 25,718 cases. The three cities accounted for 62.85 percent of all reported cases nationwide.
As for the categories of pollution, EPA statistics showed that noise pollution was the most frequently reported complaint, accounting for about 35 percent, followed by foul odors (26 percent) and poor environmental sanitation (24 percent).
Taipei’s Da-an District (大安) ranked No. 1 in all three aforementioned categories because many residents living in the mixed residential-commercial area in the district complain about loud noises from the stores, Environmental Inspection Deputy Inspector General Yang Su-er (楊素娥) said.
Also, many people living in Da-an District complained about strong odors from food, such as stinky tofu or curry, which is sold in night markets near residential areas, she said.
Dust from construction sites was also a frequent complaint, she said.
The bureau said it would continue to inspect reported locations as quickly as possible to monitor noise and odor pollution.
The bureau has also developed a smartphone app that makes reporting cases even easier. It can be downloaded for free at: ww3.epa.gov.tw/Public/Apps.aspx.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods