The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is planning improvements to 4,000 public toilets over the next four years at an expected cost of NT$1.2 billion (US$39.9 million), EPA Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) said in an interview with the Liberty Times (the sister newspaper of Taipei Times).
The EPA is to seek budget approval in a proposal submitted to the National Development Council, Lee said.
The EPA last month announced a change to a policy that prohibited flushing toilet paper because of septic system limitations.
However, some local governments have expressed difficulty implementing the new regulations.
In Taipei, half of the toilet paper in use cannot be disposed of in toilets.
With the Taipei Universiade in August, public toilets should be improved to prevent creating a bad impression of the city on foreign visitors, Lee said.
Improving public toilets should be a priority for Taipei Mayor Ko Wen-je (柯文哲), he said.
From next month, the EPA is to check whether pubic toilets have signs advising people to flush toilet paper rather than placing it in garbage bins, Department of Environmental Sanitation and Toxic Substance Management Director Yuan Shao-ying (袁紹英) said.
If some toilet buildings cannot be upgraded to implement the policy, signs telling people to use garbage bins for toilet paper disposal to avoid clogging pipes should be posted, Yuan said.
Facilities that need to be upgraded should be improved within a given time frame to avoid fines from NT$1,200 to NT$6,000 according to the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), he said.
Government agencies should improve their public toilets as soon as possible, Yuan said, adding that the EPA would create a budget for the improvement of its public toilets within the next year.
The improvements should involve the elimination of odors, the improvement of slippery and dirty surroundings and the use of water-soluble toilet paper, he said.
Since 2008, the EPA has been promoting plans to upgrade the nation’s public toilets.
Some facilities failed to achieve an “excellence” certification because of messy pipes, he said, adding that they are the EPA’s primary target for improvement.
Toilets in tourist areas and transportation hubs are also targets for improvement, he added.
Local governments can submit their own suggestions on how to improve facilities, Yuan said, adding that the EPA would take them into account in their budget plan next year.
Former Czech Republic-based Taiwanese researcher Cheng Yu-chin (鄭宇欽) has been sentenced to seven years in prison on espionage-related charges, China’s Ministry of State Security announced yesterday. China said Cheng was a spy for Taiwan who “masqueraded as a professor” and that he was previously an assistant to former Cabinet secretary-general Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰). President-elect William Lai (賴清德) on Wednesday last week announced Cho would be his premier when Lai is inaugurated next month. Today is China’s “National Security Education Day.” The Chinese ministry yesterday released a video online showing arrests over the past 10 years of people alleged to be
THE HAWAII FACTOR: While a 1965 opinion said an attack on Hawaii would not trigger Article 5, the text of the treaty suggests the state is covered, the report says NATO could be drawn into a conflict in the Taiwan Strait if Chinese forces attacked the US mainland or Hawaii, a NATO Defense College report published on Monday says. The report, written by James Lee, an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Institute of European and American Studies, states that under certain conditions a Taiwan contingency could trigger Article 5 of NATO, under which an attack against any member of the alliance is considered an attack against all members, necessitating a response. Article 6 of the North Atlantic Treaty specifies that an armed attack in the territory of any member in Europe,
LIKE FAMILY: People now treat dogs and cats as family members. They receive the same medical treatments and tests as humans do, a veterinary association official said The number of pet dogs and cats in Taiwan has officially outnumbered the number of human newborns last year, data from the Ministry of Agriculture’s pet registration information system showed. As of last year, Taiwan had 94,544 registered pet dogs and 137,652 pet cats, the data showed. By contrast, 135,571 babies were born last year. Demand for medical care for pet animals has also risen. As of Feb. 29, there were 5,773 veterinarians in Taiwan, 3,993 of whom were for pet animals, statistics from the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency showed. In 2022, the nation had 3,077 pediatricians. As of last
XINJIANG: Officials are conducting a report into amending an existing law or to enact a special law to prohibit goods using forced labor Taiwan is mulling an amendment prohibiting the importation of goods using forced labor, similar to the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act (UFLPA) passed by the US Congress in 2021 that imposed limits on goods produced using forced labor in China’s Xinjiang region. A government official who wished to remain anonymous said yesterday that as the US customs law explicitly prohibits the importation of goods made using forced labor, in 2021 it passed the specialized UFLPA to limit the importation of cotton and other goods from China’s Xinjiang Uyghur region. Taiwan does not have the legal basis to prohibit the importation of goods