The nation’s air quality has improved, but the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) is planning to further tighten the standard for the annual mean concentration of fine particulate matter to comply with that of the WHO, an EPA official said yesterday.
At a news conference in Taipei, the EPA’s Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control shared data illustrating the improvement in the nation’s air quality over the years, especially since President Tsai Ing-wen (蔡英文) took office in May 2016.
The annual mean concentration of fine particulate matter dropped from 22 milligrams per cubic meter in 2015 to 18.3 milligrams per cubic meter last year, department Director-General Tsai Hung-teh (蔡鴻德) said, but added that there is room for improvement.
Photo: CNA
The Standards of Air Quality (空氣品質標準) stipulates that the annual average concentration of PM2.5 — fine particulate matter measuring 2.5 micrometers or smaller — should be kept below 15 milligrams per cubic meter.
The agency is planning to further reduce the yearly concentration level of PM2.5 to 10 milligrams per cubic meter — the standard proposed in WHO guidelines — in response to pressure from local environmental groups, Tsai Hung-teh said, without providing a timetable for the plan.
When asked if the agency would join the WHO’s first global conference on air pollution and health scheduled for Oct. 30 to Nov. 1 in Geneva, Switzerland, he said the EPA had not received an invitation or any notices about the event.
The EPA since November last year has worked with the Ministry of Economic Affairs in asking state-run Taiwan Power Co to cut power generation levels when air quality is forecast to be bad, he said, adding that the procedure would become a regular practice from October to February every year.
To curtail mobile pollution sources, the agency has been giving subsidies to people who replace older vehicles with newer, less polluting ones, with 7,406 diesel cars and 444,790 scooters having been removed from the streets last year, EPA data showed.
Other pollution control measures include encouraging people to burn less joss paper, or ghost money, and incense sticks when observing religious practices.
Over the past four or five years, the nation used about 300,000 tonnes of joss paper per year as well as nearly 400 million incense sticks, but that was reduced last year to 195,000 tonnes of joss paper and 200 million incense sticks, he said.
After draft amendments to the Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法) are passed, the agency would impose stricter regulations on various pollution sources, and local governments would be empowered to demarcate air quality regulation zones, from which older vehicles would be banned, Tsai Hung-teh added.
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