The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is planning to prohibit stores from offering free plastic bags to customers in an attempt to reduce plastic bag consumption, while a mothballed incinerator in Yunlin County should be ready for activation to increase the nation’s waste treatment capacity, EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said yesterday.
Lee announced the proposed ban on free plastic bags during a radio interview, in which questions were raised about the agency’s plastic bag usage reduction policies following an online campaign organized by a Polish student to phase out free plastic bags in Taiwan.
“Next month is international plastic-free month. I will make a report next month about the progress in preparing for a ban on free plastic bags,” Lee said.
National Chengchi University student Piotr Kurczewski launched an Internet campaign called “Free Taiwan from Free Plastic Bags” to collect signatures to petition President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) to ban free plastic bags.
“Taiwanese use 18 billion plastic bags every year. That means a person uses 782 plastic bags in just a year’s time, which is four times as many plastic bags used by Europeans and Australians,” Kurczewski wrote on the campaign’s Web page, questioning Taiwan’s consumer behavior.
Excessive and thoughtless use of plastic bags damages the environment, and the Taiwanese government should require consumers to pay NT$5 for each plastic bag, Kurczewski wrote.
“People are very accustomed to plastic bags, which can be seen floating on rivers and in the sea. The Polish student’s suggestion made me embarrassed, but thankful. It is undoubtedly one of the agency’s goals to ban free plastic bags,” Lee said.
In an attempt to reduce plastic waste and its effect on the environment, the agency last month announced that it would ban the production and sale of personal care products containing plastic microbeads, Lee said, adding that banning plastic bags is also an objective.
Meanwhile, Lee said the Yunlin County Government should resolve legal issues involving the Linnei Waste Incineration Plant in Linnei Township (林內) so the mothballed plant can be started when necessary.
The incinerator has never been activated due to environmental issues and legal disputes between the county government and the plant’s constructor, but there have been calls to start the plant amid a national waste treatment crisis, which began last year.
“The county government should try to resolve property rights issues and have the plant undergo an environmental impact assessment if necessary. The plant would remain mothballed, but it could be used as a contingency option when natural crises create a waste problem,” Lee said.
It was the first time the agency reiterated the necessity of starting the Linnei incinerator since former EPA minister Wei Kuo-yen (魏國彥) proposed doing so last year when hundreds of tonnes of garbage
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:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching