Taiwan residents could see garbage collection fees increase two-fold as early as next year, if Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) plans, discussed at a press conference yesterday, are approved in coming weeks.
EPA officials have been planning to incorporate the cost of establishing public incinerators and landfills in garbage collection fees. It is expected that residents will, in the first year, have to pay approximately double what they pay now, with the possibility of further increases in subsequent years.
"In the first year, we will only incorporate 5 percent of the cost of building public landfills and incinerators," Fu Shu-chiang (符樹強), director of the EPA's Bureau of Solid Waste Control (廢管處), said at the press conference.
Taiwan's current policy on compulsory garbage collection was initiated in 1980. Under the Waste Disposal Act, environmental protection bureaus under local governments must collect fees for the clearance and disposal of general waste from residents within designated clearance areas.
The act states that rates and collection measures are to be determined by the EPA, taking into consideration the costs of clearance methods and disposal facilities used by the local governments.
The rates in many counties are calculated on the basis of monthly tap water usage per household.
Had the EPA incorporated the full cost of building public waste management facilities, including landfills and incinerators, residents would be astonished by the costs of processing their garbage.
The cost of building a large-scale waste incinerator, designed to handle 900 tonnes of waste per day, is about NT$3 billion, while acquiring a public landfill costs at least NT$1 billion.
The amount of waste generated annually is dropping, while dozens of large-scale incinerators are under construction.
According to EPA statistics, Taiwan residents of generated 8.56 million tonnes of waste late year, down from 8.88 million in 1998.
EPA officials admit that in the future, the amount of household waste generated might not be sufficient to keep the planned total of 36 large-scale incinerators -- 21 of which will be publicly owned -- in operation, and that it is possible that some of them may eventually process industrial waste.
"In order to mollify householders, we are considering garbage collection rates based substantially on the number of public landfills and incinerators per county," Fu said, adding that other factors would be taken into account when calculating the rates, causing variations from county to county.
"Reducing and recycling are the main goals of our waste managing strategy," Fu said.
"To avoid unduly provoking opponents of such schemes, we will increase garbage collection fees gradually," said James Lee (李界木), deputy administrator of the EPA.
To encourage people to generate less waste, some local governments have recently initiated new schemes. Taichung has a new system of compulsory classification of household waste and Taipei's new scheme charges for domestic waste on the basis of volume of trash per household. Such schemes have, however, drawn opposition from some residents for what they claim are unreasonably high charges.
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