Once dubbed “garbage island” for its overflowing landfills and filthy streets, Taiwan now has Asia’s highest rate of recycling and is a role model for the region, analysts said on Thursday.
With untreated waste causing marine pollution and clogged drains triggering fatal floods from Bangkok to Manila, Southeast Asian cities should look to Taiwan’s success in reducing and recycling waste, they said.
“Taiwan didn’t do anything mystical; it just developed good policy based on the experiences of others,” Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research consultant Nate Maynard said. “If Southeast Asian countries adopted the same core principles, then they could develop their own models that work.”
Reducing waste is becoming a global priority amid growing calls for more aggressive action on climate change and plastic pollution, particularly in urban areas, which the UN has projected will house 60 percent of the global population by 2030.
Environmentalists asked leaders at the 10-member ASEAN summit to create a “sustainable and ethical circular economy” that reduces the harmful effects of poor waste management amid rapid growth.
“Countries should be thinking about reducing consumption of plastic, redesigning products to reduce waste and more recycling,” said Penchom Saetang of advocacy group Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand. “We have seen the devastating impacts of improper waste management on communities. The price we pay in terms of loss of health, land and clean drinking water is incalculable.”
Taiwan’s reforms were started two decades ago by residents in the capital, Taipei, who protested the city’s inaction on waste management, resulting in “pay-as-you-throw” taxes, where charges depend on the amount of garbage produced.
Presorted waste is also handed to musical garbage trucks that make the rounds five nights per week, while residents and businesses are encouraged to generate less waste, with stringent penalties for infractions, waste experts said.
“Taiwan did all this at a time of relatively lower economic development and without a long history of environmentalism. The movement was driven by grassroots efforts and public protests,” Maynard said.
Taiwan recycles about 55 percent of its municipal solid waste — the second-highest rate globally, said Grayson Shor, a circular economy consultant to the US government-funded American Institute in Taiwan.
Its per capita daily waste generation has fallen nearly 20 percent in two decades, with landfill sites being converted into parks and community centers, he added.
“Taiwan has been able to do this as a result of its green technology and design innovations in public education,” Shor told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “It is ... easily transferable to other Asian countries.”
An increase in Taiwanese boats using China-made automatic identification systems (AIS) could confuse coast guards patrolling waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast and become a loophole in the national security system, sources familiar with the matter said yesterday. Taiwan ADIZ, a Facebook page created by enthusiasts who monitor Chinese military activities in airspace and waters off Taiwan’s southwest coast, on Saturday identified what seemed to be a Chinese cargo container ship near Penghu County. The Coast Guard Administration went to the location after receiving the tip and found that it was a Taiwanese yacht, which had a Chinese AIS installed. Similar instances had also
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VIGILANCE: The military is paying close attention to actions that might damage peace and stability in the region, the deputy minister of national defense said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) might consider initiating a hack on Taiwanese networks on May 20, the day of the inauguration ceremony of president-elect William Lai (賴清德), sources familiar with cross-strait issues said. While US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken’s statement of the US expectation “that all sides will conduct themselves with restraint and prudence in the period ahead” would prevent military actions by China, Beijing could still try to sabotage Taiwan’s inauguration ceremony, the source said. China might gain access to the video screens outside of the Presidential Office Building and display embarrassing messages from Beijing, such as congratulating Lai
Four China Coast Guard ships briefly sailed through prohibited waters near Kinmen County, Taipei said, urging Beijing to stop actions that endanger navigation safety. The Chinese ships entered waters south of Kinmen, 5km from the Chinese city of Xiamen, at about 3:30pm on Monday, the Coast Guard Administration said in a statement later the same day. The ships “sailed out of our prohibited and restricted waters” about an hour later, the agency said, urging Beijing to immediately stop “behavior that endangers navigation safety.” Ministry of National Defense spokesman Sun Li-fang (孫立方) yesterday told reporters that Taiwan would boost support to the Coast Guard