In a bid to improve water quality and eliminate dengue fever breeding sites, the Taipei City Government yesterday announced that it would start monitoring the performance of septic tanks across the city.
Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Liou Ming-lone (劉銘龍) said the agency would require 962 buildings more than five stories high and overseen by a management committee to clean their septic tanks once a year starting next year.
Liou said the policy complements the city’s river restoration efforts to improve the water quality along the Tamsui (淡水河), Sindian (新店溪) and Keelung (基隆河) rivers.
He said that septic tanks that are cleaned regularly have a longer service life and on average show 51 percent functionality, while those that are not cleaned become virtually dysfunctional, showing only 3 percent functionality.
He said that with the percentage of households and businesses in Taipei connected to the public sewage system exceeding 74 percent, the number of buildings whose septic tanks are monitored by the city government has declined from 1,818 in 2002 to 511.
According to the new regulations, management committees are to submit invoices documenting that work to maintain the tanks has been conducted, while residents who do not comply could be fined between NT$1,200 and NT$6,000 under the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), he said.
Septic tanks are connected to rainwater drainage pipes beside roadways and can become breeding sites for dengue fever-transmitting mosquitoes if their outflows are not properly treated, Liou said.
However, as the rule only targets registered buildings with management committees, it means that septic tanks at about 30,000 buildings, or 26 percent, that do not meet the requirements would not be listed as controled by the city government.
Depoartment head Tang Chen-hsiung (唐振雄) said the agency would dispatch inspectors to buildings to check the state of their septic tanks and ask residents to make improvements if necessary.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai