Nearly 48 percent of the nation’s marine garbage is found on the coasts of New Taipei City, Tainan and Chiayi County, with plastic bottles, extruded polystyrene foam products and disused fishing gear most commonly seen, Greenpeace Taiwan said yesterday.
Greenpeace Taiwan and the Society of Wilderness last month conducted a survey of garbage at 121 coastal areas nationwide, with investigators estimating beach pollution by eye, a methodology adopted by Japanese and South Korean environmentalists.
The dirtiest coasts were in New Taipei City’s Rueifang District (瑞芳), Chiayi’s Budai Township (布袋), Cingcaolun (青草崙) in Tainan’s Annan District (安南) and Yunlin County’s Mailiao Township (麥寮), as well as Changhua County’s Dacheng Township (大城) and Fenshuei (濆水) in New Taipei City’s Jinshan District (金山), which had similar levels of pollution, the environmental group said.
Despite some regional differences, plastic bottles, extruded polystyrene foam products and fishing gear were the most frequently found types of garbage, Society of Wilderness member Hu Chieh-shen (胡介申) said.
Using a 90-liter bag to estimate the amount of garbage, the groups said that the trash on Rueifang’s coast could fill 210 bags, followed by 113 bags in Budai, 85 bags in Cingcaolun, 70 bags in Mailiao and 65 bags in Dacheng and Fenshuei.
The government should continue to track the flow of marine waste to reduce its production and encourage recycling, Greenpeace Taiwan oceans campaigner Yen Ning (顏寧) said.
The groups plan to carry out similar surveys three times per year to gain a better understanding of marine waste in different seasons, Yen said.
Asked for comment, Ocean Conservation Administration Minister Huang Hsiang-wen (黃向文) said the agency has also been collecting marine waste data compiled by local governments and has sought funding for a plan to monitor marine waste and microplastics next year.
The agency, established on April 28, has taken over the responsibility of managing marine waste from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
Marine trash near outlying islands is also a serious problem, Huang said, adding that the conservation agency would communicate with local governments across the Taiwan Strait to facilitate waste disposal based on the EPA’s experiences.
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