A National Health Research Institutes (NHRI) report has found elevated concentrations of 20 trace metals in fine particulate matter during days of poor air quality in Yunlin County in winter, with coal-burning, steelmaking, non-ferrous metallurgy and traffic accounting for more than 96 percent of trace metals found in particulate matter.
A research team led by NHRI researcher Chen Yu-cheng (陳裕政) on Thursday announced the results of a two-year air-quality monitoring project from 2013 to last year in Yunlin, saying that 19 out of the 20 sampled trace metals in airborne particles measuring 10 micrometers or less (PM10) and particles measuring 2.5 micrometers or less (PM2.5) increased by between 6 percent and 223 percent on days when levels of particulate matter surged, where the concentrations of iron, aluminum, manganese, titanium and cobalt significantly increased by 223 percent, 220 percent, 214 percent, 210 percent and 115 percent respectively.
Trace arsenic levels found in PM2.5 pollutants detected during PM episodes reached 6.67 nanograms per cubic meter, which is above Europe’s permissible levels, at 6 nanograms per cubic meter, Chen said.
Trace metals were chosen as the subject of the study due to their toxicity and associated health risks, and the team was able to pinpoint which industrial activities contribute to the emission by analyzing the fingerprints of different metals, he said.
Coal combustion, which is strongly correlated with the generation of zinc, arsenic, cadmium and lead, was the main contributor to the increase in particulate matter during PM episodes, accounting for 36.5 percent of the increase, with coal combustion mainly related to coal-fired plants, as well as semiconductor and electronics manufacturing.
The iron and steel industry accounted for 30.5 percent of the particulate matter increase, while vehicle emission and oil burning explained 16.3 percent of the increase and non-ferrous metallurgy contributed 13.1 percent, according to the footprints of other sampled metals, Chen said.
The study also confirmed that many of the pollutants detected during observed PM episodes were from outside of the county, brought in by the northeast monsoon that prevails in winter, which picks up pollutants from China and northern and central Taiwan, he said.
Apparent polluters lying in the path of the monsoon included Chunghua Coastal Industrial Park in Changhua County and Taichung Power Plant and Dragon Steel in Taichung, while major local polluters are the Formosa Plastics Group’s naphtha cracker and coal-fired plant in Yulin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮), he said, adding that while the exact sources of trace metals found in Yulin remain to be determined, it could be reasonably suspected that those polluters have a share of the emission of fine-size metals.
The results suggest the government should impose more stringent emission controls over coal-fired plants, the steelmaking industry and the transport sector to reduce the risks of PM2.5 exposure, he said.
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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