The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday launched its annual showcase for soil and groundwater protection in Taipei, drawing hundreds of global delegates to learn about the agency’s efforts to prevent soil and water contamination and the nation’s pollution-monitoring technologies.
The three-day exhibition, dubbed the International Conference of Remediation and Management of Soil and Groundwater Contaminated Sites, highlights partnerships between the EPA, local precision manufacturing companies and academic experts to develop and apply new environmental protection technologies.
For example, National Taiwan University associate professor Huang Chien-fen (黃千芬), an expert on sediment surveying, is guiding the agency on how to operate a sub-bottom profiler — a machine that performs real-time data analysis on sediments to find areas with excessive levels of heavy metals.
Agency official Chang Chih-wei (張志偉) said that the device helps the EPA locate areas that need to be excavated to prevent heavy metals from being consumed by freshwater animals or tapped for irrigation and entering the food chain.
Regarding dioxin sampling, EPA Environmental Analysis Laboratory division head Chen Yuan-wu (陳元武) said the agency is collaborating with a private firm to develop a continuous centrifugal system to sample dioxins in groundwater, wastewater and drinking water from purification plants.
The machine uses filter paper and foam to extract dioxins in water samples before frozen samples undergo detailed analysis, he said.
The machine, although developed over a period of more than three years, cost about NT$500,000 (US$16,150), making it more time-saving than its predecessors and more cost-efficient than its Japanese counterparts, which cost twice as much, he said.
On managing defunct factories, agency official Sun Tung-ching (孫冬京) said plant or land owners must pass the EPA’s soil analysis before they can set up factories in other places or lease their land to other operators.
There are about 120,000 defunct plants nationwide, she said.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
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