A much-needed reflection on Earth Day tomorrow should be Taiwan’s plans to address pollution, as the problems are right in front of everyone’s eyes, while effective policies for a sustainable environment are almost nonexistent.
Taiwan produces large amounts of industrial waste as economic development takes its toll, but the nation’s waste management has failed to keep up, while a lack of ethics in business damages the environment and affects people’s health.
Last year, about 3.27 million tonnes of hazardous waste was recorded, including solvents, petrochemicals, heavy metals, contaminated medical supplies and arc furnace dust, out of a total of 18.56 million tonnes of industrial waste, as recorded by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), giving Taiwan one of the highest rates of waste generation per capita in the world. Of course, a large quantity of waste remained unrecorded. Illegal dumping and storage of industrial waste being uncovered occurs so frequently that it hardly makes the headlines anymore.
At least 20 percent of the waste is not suitable for burning or recycling. The EPA has estimated that it would require a site of between 4.49 million and 8 million cubic meters, or between six and 10 times the size of the Taipei Arena, to dispose of it all every year.
Due to limited space to expand its landfill capacity, the EPA has been pushing for a new land reclamation project that would use treated industrial waste to reclaim land in the nation’s seaports. The policy has raised serious concerns. Instead of using the ocean as a dumping ground, the government should focus on adjusting industries’ policies and encourage corporations to minimize waste generation at its origin.
Like many other countries, Taiwan has separated economic and environmental factors in policy planning in its pursuit of economic growth over the decades, risking an irrevocably degraded environment to pass on to future generations. As the effects of climate change become increasingly visible, a growing number of countries have begun to integrate environmental considerations into their economic policy, aiming to simultaneously reduce pollution and improve the economy, but Taiwan has not followed suit.
Last week, led by Yunlin County Commissioner Lee Chin-yung (李進勇), leaders from six local governments in central and southern Taiwan signed a joint declaration pledging that beginning next year, they would prohibit the burning of petroleum coke and coal, major sources of emissions of PM2.5 pollution, at factories and power plants in their administrative regions. They also demanded that the EPA draw up a policy to implement the ban nationwide.
The move quickly met with criticism from officials at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and the state-owned Taiwan Power Co, who warned of economic repercussions if the ban is imposed, while placing the responsibility to combat air pollution on the EPA.
They said that the ban would immediately disrupt power supply, given that the coal-fired generators installed in the six cities and counties provide about 22.8 percent — or 25.8 percent during peak periods — of the total installed power-generation capacity of the nation and would lead to a loss of NT$3 trillion (US$96.5 billion) in industrial production.
It was another example of officials who manage the economy while leaving environmental concerns to one side. Opposition from the ministry has stalled the passage of a draft greenhouse gas reduction act in the legislature for years due to its disagreement with the emission-reduction goal stipulated by law.
To reverse the damage done to the environment by decades of trying to promote economic growth at all costs, more consideration should be given to environmental indicators, but the government is still reinforcing a bias toward economic concerns.
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