Taiwanese produce on average three kinds of plastic garbage every day, but most are not properly recycled, a survey released yesterday by the Taiwan RE-THINK Environmental Education Association found.
The survey of 1,085 students and online respondents last month showed that up to 96 percent of people dump certain single-use plastics every day, and every person surveyed produced at least three kinds of plastic garbage.
Plastic bags are the most common trash that people produce, followed by plastic-coated food containers, plastic cups, plastic straws and bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), RE-THINK marketing and public relations director Sandra Wang (王滋鮮) told a news conference in Taipei.
People might think that recycling PET bottles is easy, but only 52 percent of respondents knew that it takes nearly 450 years for the environment to decompose the bottles, she said.
Recycling is not a cure-all for garbage disposal, and people should improve their understanding of garbage and its destinations, RE-THINK co-founder Jason Huang (黃之揚) said.
In its recycling index, to be launched next year, the association would list out the components and recycling category of certain products, he said.
The index would be launched online, as well as made into teaching materials for schools, he added.
Last year, RE-THINK created a printed and online guidebook of marine debris, which it used as the basis of an interactive game to raise awareness about plastic pollution.
More than 40,000 people joined beach cleanups and collected hundreds of tonnes of garbage in 2017 and last year, Wang said.
However, the trash produced by each Taiwanese per day amounted to 1.132kg last year, a record high since 2001, she said, citing data from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
The government has continued to enact plastic reduction policies, including the ban on single-use plastic straws for dine-in customers at public and chain restaurants, which took effect in July, and which garners increasing support from the public, EPA Department of Environmental Sanitation and Toxic Substance Management Director-General Tsai Ling-yi (蔡玲儀) said at the news conference.
Starting from January, the Taipei City Government is to implement a ban on providing single-use plastic cutlery at shopping malls, which would be followed by more local municipalities, she added.
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
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President William Lai (賴清德) is expected to announce a new advanced “all-domain” air defense system to better defend against China when he gives his keynote national day speech today, four sources familiar with the matter said. Taiwan is ramping up defense spending and modernizing its armed forces, but faces a China that has a far larger military and is adding its own advanced new weapons such as stealth fighter jets, aircraft carriers and a huge array of missiles. Lai is expected to announce the air defense system dubbed “Taiwan Dome” in his speech this morning, one of the sources said. The system
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