A recent national contest for night markets failed to find even one street eatery to award with the “Most Eco-friendly” prize. This is a shame, given President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) purported push for a green society. Night markets produce a ridiculous amount of garbage, from styrofoam containers and cardboard biandang boxes to plastic cups and disposable chopsticks.
In the interest of profit and convenience, few, if any, proprietors of night market food stalls have done anything to adopt more eco-friendly practices. This is blatantly obvious on the outskirts of any night market at about 10:30pm, when specially designated garbage trucks arrive to cart away the tonnes of trash that accumulate there every day.
The Tourism Bureau’s contest to find the best night markets featured categories including “Most Friendly Atmosphere,” “Best Food” and “Most Organized.” A panel of judges comprised of local and international food writers, tourism officials and news editors made the final picks after netizens voted for their favorites. The Keelung Night Market won top prize in the “Best Food” and “Most Tourist-Friendly” categories, while Taichung’s Fengjia and Yilan County’s Luodong night markets also won top prizes. In total, 10 night markets won awards.
One of the judges, food writer Lucille Han (韓良露), went as far as to say it would be a “big joke” to hand out such a prize to any one of the night markets. Han added that “being clean does not equal being eco-friendly,” saying there must be “objective indicators, such as the use of disposable utensils and the separation of recyclable and non-recyclable waste.”
Years ago, under the Democratic Progressive Party administration, the Environmental Protection Administration initiated a policy of phasing out the use of throw-away utensils, plastic bags and other convenient, but environmentally unfriendly, products, but the policy failed, miserably. Plastic bags at convenience stores are now heavier than they’ve ever been, night market vendors give away disposable utensils at unprecedented rates and consumers don’t seem to care. It’s a rare sight to see customers carry their own utensils to night markets in a bid to be eco-friendly, but that is the only alternative if you want to do something good for the environment while enjoying stinky tofu.
The Tourism Bureau is not done promoting night markets. Before the judges even announced the winner of the recent contest, bureau officials said they were planning to hand out roughly NT$15 million (US$468,000) in vouchers for tourists to use at the nation’s night markets. The vouchers, worth NT$100 each, will go mostly to individual tourists who book plane tickets and hotels, and many will be reserved for tourists from Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong and Malaysia. This is a valiant effort on the part of the government to promote tourism in Taiwan, while at the same time helping street vendors.
However, if the government were serious about promoting eco-friendly eating, it would spend the money it is using for these vouchers to improve environmental practices at night markets. Collecting trash from night markets and disposing of it probably costs taxpayers millions of NT dollars a night. Spending that much to get rid of styrofoam instead would be an investment.
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