In a concerted effort to halt the construction of a privately run waste incinerator in Taoyuan County, hundreds of residents blocked roads to the site to express their strong opposition to the project.
Work on the incinerator was scheduled to begin yesterday.
Blocking roads to the site in Tayuan township (
Only minor injuries were reported in the scuffles between the protesters and police.
"We have doubts as to the legal process taken by local government authorities in issuing construction licenses for the project, as the site is located in a zone with building restrictions," said Chien Wei-chin (簡煒欽), chairman of Tayuan's assembly of township representatives.
Chien added that the land had been under military management for several years.
The incinerator, being built by Kun Yeh Environmental Engineering Corp (
But local residents said the contractor had failed to communicate with local residents over the project.
Claiming the incinerator could present both environmental problems and endanger their health, they demanded the local government review the project.
Officials from the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) stressed yesterday that burning household and industrial waste is still the most efficient way to solve the problem of insufficient sites for landfills in Taiwan, adding that people should understand the difficulties faced by local governments.
"Taoyuan County once faced a serious garbage management problem before Annette Lu (呂秀蓮) became County Commissioner. But she helped the EPA to plan the building of two waste incinerators in the county," said Yueh Chang-shya (樂昌洽), director-general of the EPA's incinerator engineering bureau (焚化爐興建工程處).
Yueh said that a quarter of the construction work on a waste incinerator at the Chungli Industrial Park has already been completed, and that the facility would be finished by the end of 2001.
The construction of yet another waste incinerator, in the north of the county, is expected to be completed within three years.
"Once these two projects are completed, their combined capacity will be 2,000 tonnes of household waste daily -- about the same amount generated by the two million residents of Taoyuan County," Yueh said.
Yueh said that people have to consider realistic solutions to industrial waste management problems.
"We should view private waste incinerators -- especially those designed to burn industrial waste -- as a supplement to public facilities," Yueh said, adding that the technology employed by private environmental engineering companies could be trusted.
Yueh told the Taipei Times that the construction of the incinerator by Kun Yeh Environmental Engineering Corp in Tayuan township is lawful.
"Although the EPA has not supervised the project, as far as we know, the process of issuing the construction license was legal," Yueh said.
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