Legislators and environmentalists yesterday urged the government to establish a national dioxin strategy group to reduce the risk of exposing people to dioxin, a suspected carcinogen emitted from Taiwan's waste incinerators.
Sparked by a report released by an environmental group on Sunday -- showing the public may have been exposed to high levels of dioxins -- tempers flared as the topic remained high on the legislature's agenda yesterday.
Environmentalists said that incinerator policies should be reviewed because people are concerned by the revelations that high dioxin levels are threatening public health.
PHOTO: CHIANG YING-YING, TAIPEI TIMES
However, officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said they are monitoring levels at all large incinerators twice per year, and that by the end of next year, more acceptable dioxin levels at small medical waste incinerators would also be established.
Legislators said that the EPA appears to be risking people's lives by allowing medical waste incinerators to operate without proper guidelines.
"On the dioxin issue, the EPA is in charge of air quality control only. That's why we need a national unit to coordinate dioxin-related affairs, including the collation of background data of accumulated dioxin in people's blood, dairy products, and soil," KMT legislator Eugene Chao (
Chao said that such a unit might suggest revising incinerator policies, and that a proposal would soon be presented by legislators.
Environmental experts also stressed yesterday the necessity of setting up a national level force to monitor dioxin concentrations.
"Three main sources of dioxin are air, water and the soil. For human beings, more than 95% of accumulated dioxin is from contaminated food," said Ling Yung-chien (-漭簸?, a chemist from National Tsing Hua University.
"The government must collate background data on accumulated dioxins immediately, and then keep monitoring concentrations in the environment," he said.
However, environmentalists suggested yesterday that a strict monitoring of the operation of existing incinerators is necessary.
"Since there will be at least 36 large waste incinerators in Taiwan, complete health risk assessment and a well-designed operation procedure are essential," said Liu Ming-long (
Environmental experts echoed Liu's opinions.
"We should be very careful with the management of incinerators. If we take the incinerator in western Tainan County (
Both local and overseas incinerator experts have pointed out similar problems regarding the operation of incinerators, including such things as the monitoring of dioxin concentration and waste management.
According to John F. Lee (李健??, a German incinerator expert who recently provided the EPA with an investigative report of Taiwan's incinerators, a typical management method of mixing different types of dioxin-filled ash left inside incinerators -- as is the current practice -- was questionable.
"We found that an incinerator in Peitou (
"We found that several incinerators in Taiwan are running insufficiently. Had the total amount of waste in Taiwan been reduced by recycling waste properly, one- third of incinerators would not have to be built," Lee said.
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