New Taipei City residents often dump garbage in Taoyuan to avoid paying for trash bags, Taoyuan City councilors said yesterday, urging the two cities’ environmental protection bureaus to tackle the problem.
The Taipei City Government in 2000 started to levy a trash tax from the sale of the bags, rather than including it into utility bills, requiring city residents to dispose of their trash in the specialized bags.
In 2010, New Taipei City also adopted the policy, leading to some residents dumping trash in Taoyuan, where the bags are not taxed, said Taoyuan City Councilor Lin Cheng-fong (林正峰), who represents the city’s Gueishan District (龜山).
Gueishan’s garbage trucks are often overburdened with trash coming from New Taipei City’s Sinjhuang (新莊), Shulin (樹林) and Linkou (林口) districts, he said, asking: “Is Taoyuan rich enough to deal with another city’s trash?”
Taoyuan City Councilor Liu Mao-chun (劉茂群), representing the city’s Bade District (八德), said his constituency has found a large amount of trash from the neighboring Yingge District (鶯歌) in New Taipei City.
People in Taoyuan’s Lujhu District (蘆竹) also complained about trash from Linkou, Taoyuan City Councilor Hsu Ching-shun (許清順) said.
“People are shifting their troubles to their neighbors,” Taoyuan Department of Environmental Protection Director-General Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said.
Shen promised to work the problem out with New Taipei City’s corresponding bureau.
Meanwhile, he said that it would be difficult for the Taoyuan City Government to impose a trash bag fee in the near future.
To tax trash bags, the city would have to make a budget for them and arrange for more inspectors to patrol the streets, he said.
A year-long renovation of Taipei’s Bangka Park (艋舺公園) began yesterday, as city workers fenced off the site and cleared out belongings left by homeless residents who had been living there. Despite protests from displaced residents, a city official defended the government’s relocation efforts, saying transitional housing has been offered. The renovation of the park in Taipei’s Wanhua District (萬華), near Longshan Temple (龍山寺), began at 9am yesterday, as about 20 homeless people packed their belongings and left after being asked to move by city personnel. Among them was a 90-year-old woman surnamed Wang (王), who last week said that she had no plans
China might accelerate its strategic actions toward Taiwan, the South China Sea and across the first island chain, after the US officially entered a military conflict with Iran, as Beijing would perceive Washington as incapable of fighting a two-front war, a military expert said yesterday. The US’ ongoing conflict with Iran is not merely an act of retaliation or a “delaying tactic,” but a strategic military campaign aimed at dismantling Tehran’s nuclear capabilities and reshaping the regional order in the Middle East, said National Defense University distinguished adjunct lecturer Holmes Liao (廖宏祥), former McDonnell Douglas Aerospace representative in Taiwan. If
TO BE APPEALED: The environment ministry said coal reduction goals had to be reached within two months, which was against the principle of legitimate expectation The Taipei High Administrative Court on Thursday ruled in favor of the Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau in its administrative litigation against the Ministry of Environment for the rescission of a NT$18 million fine (US$609,570) imposed by the bureau on the Taichung Power Plant in 2019 for alleged excess coal power generation. The bureau in November 2019 revised what it said was a “slip of the pen” in the text of the operating permit granted to the plant — which is run by Taiwan Power Co (Taipower) — in October 2017. The permit originally read: “reduce coal use by 40 percent from Jan.
‘SPEY’ REACTION: Beijing said its Eastern Theater Command ‘organized troops to monitor and guard the entire process’ of a Taiwan Strait transit China sent 74 warplanes toward Taiwan between late Thursday and early yesterday, 61 of which crossed the median line in the Taiwan Strait. It was not clear why so many planes were scrambled, said the Ministry of National Defense, which tabulated the flights. The aircraft were sent in two separate tranches, the ministry said. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Thursday “confirmed and welcomed” a transit by the British Royal Navy’s HMS Spey, a River-class offshore patrol vessel, through the Taiwan Strait a day earlier. The ship’s transit “once again [reaffirmed the Strait’s] status as international waters,” the foreign ministry said. “Such transits by
RSS