A French TV show host praised Siaoliouciou Island (小琉球) for its cup-sharing program, as well as other eco-friendly initiatives.
Jerome Pitorin, who visited the coral island off the coast of Pingtung County to film an episode of the French travel show Echappees belles, said that he liked the reusable cups that reduced waste on the island, the Tourism Bureau and the Dapeng Bay National Scenic Area Administration said in a statement on Monday.
Pitorin and his crew traveled throughout the island using the cups, which was part of a program launched in April, the statement said, adding that the Dapeng Bay group provided support for the film crew during their visit.
Photo: Dapeng Bay Management Office via CNA
In the cup-sharing program, anyone who has registered for the service with their cell phone number can borrow reusable stainless steel cups for free from 23 designated spots, which include beverage shops, convenience stores and tourist service centers, and they can be returned to 27 stations across the island, it said.
Each cup has an identification number and the system tracks how many each person has borrowed, it added.
Pitorin and his team also used reusable lunch boxes provided by environmental groups to buy food on the island, the statement said, adding that they ate at restaurants that have reduced the use of plastic in their operations and stayed at an eco-friendly hotel.
As Pitorin liked the cups, the groups that provide them gave him one as a gift, it said.
Siaoliouciou Island attracts a large number of tourists every year, but the increasing number of visitors has also had a negative impact on the local environment, causing a noticeable increase in plastic waste, the statement said.
To combat this, several businesses have started offering discounts to eco-friendly tourists, and the effort has been expanded by two environmental groups, Ching Piao and Hiin Studio, it said.
The groups plan to roll out more initiatives next year, which would allow tourists to rent lunch boxes, cutlery and raincoats, Hiin Studio deputy chief executive Kuo Fu (郭芙) said.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
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