As the sun sets and most office workers leave work to enjoy an evening relaxing with friends and family, Chen Min-ho's (
It's 5:30 pm, but there is already a pile of 13 cases awaiting his attention as he enters the office of the Investigation Squad (
The list will keep growing as the evening progresses. A 24-hour environmental protection hotline relays calls to the team throughout the night.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Tonight's caseload includes checking out a private recycling center in Neihu. Someone has phoned in to complain about malodorous water spilled from the facility.
Chen and two of his teammates -- the so-called "garbage police" -- will have to work non-stop through midnight visiting sites in the city to make sure that the city streets are clean and the air and water quality is safe.
Once they have finished all the cases that arose before 10:30pm, another night shift takes over.
PHOTO: GEORGE TSORNG, TAIPEI TIMES
Since the city implemented its new garbage disposal initiative on July 1, Chen and 80 other members of his squad have had to work four night shifts each week to tackle an increasing workload. They used to work just one night shift every 10 days.
Night shift duties are diverse, ranging from handling complaints filed by government officials and the general public to escorting a garbage truck by motor scooter to help promote the recently adopted garbage collection fee program.
There are 289 garbage collection routes in the city's 12 districts. Chen and his 15 teammates at the third squadron are responsible for the Neihu, Sungshan and Chungshan Districts.
Lack of resources
Although the city has seen a 39 percent decrease in garbage volume and fourfold increase in recycling since July 1, a shortage of resources seems to be the major problem the BEP faces.
According to the latest data released by the bureau, the city generates on average more than 3,400 tonnes of garbage a day, roughly 1,800 tonnes of which -- or more than half -- is picked up by the city's 12 district cleaning squads.
The 12 squads are staffed by 4,500 full-time and 1,700 part-time employees. Although they are equipped with 970 vehicles, just 430 of these are garbage trucks and 216 collection trucks for recyclables.
"Even this number of vehicles is insufficient," says James Shieh, (
They work three shifts a day: two day shifts and one night shift. While the day shift staff clean the city's streets and gutters, the night shift workers collect trash from the city's 289 collection routes.
At least 3,000 people and 289 garbage trucks are dispatched every evening. In other words, each person takes care of 0.6 tonnes of trash a day.
Shieh, who is in charge of the city's 12 cleaning squads, said his team members are overloaded with work.
"The biggest challenge we've been facing since July 1 is the shortage of personnel and vehicles," he said.
According to Shieh, their workload has increased to the extent that each person has to work an extra 46 hours a month overtime, or two to three hours a day. Before July 1 the average amount of overtime for each worker was 30 hours a month, or two hours a day.
Shieh said he is afraid that his division's NT$518 million overtime fund for this 18-month fiscal year will dry up soon.
"The monthly overtime fund for the 12 squads used to cost between NT$20 million and NT$30 million, but now it has doubled to about NT$60 million," he said.
Although the city has allocated NT$25 million more for additional garbage and recyclable collection vehicles, that amount appears insufficient.
"If I rent 70 vehicles a day, the money will not get us through August. But I might be able to get by until December if I rent 40 vehicles a day," he said. "Nevertheless, it doesn't solve the entire problem."
Only one earth
Yang Su-er (
"The NT$25 million additional fund is barely enough to rent more vehicles, and we have to borrow 49 people from the 12 district cleaning squads, who are already short of people themselves," she said.
Yang supervises the operations of the city's two recycling centers: the Futekeng (
The construction of a third recycling center at Tawantuan (
Also under Yang's supervision are the city's First and Second Recycling Squads (
Since the recycling rate has increased more than fourfold from 2.5 percent to more than 10 percent, Lei Chao-shun (
Lei added that although 40 more people have joined the two squads since July 1, he hopes to have another 40 people and 12 more vehicles for the two teams.
Whether or not Lei's wish is granted, Yang called for the public to separate regular garbage thoroughly from recyclables to minimize the workload of the two squad members.
"It's outrageous that about 20 percent of `recyclables' collected are actually trash such as sanitary napkins or kitchen waste," she said. "It not only reduces the efficiency of the machinery and the handlers but it also costs time and money to request garbage trucks to come to the recycling site, pick them up and carry it away."
Long-term educational programs and the supply of information to the public will be important, Yang said.
To better educate the public about how to separate recyclables efficiently, the section has been working on handing out pamphlets and plastic poster boards. They are currently in the process of drafting the literature, she said.
Getting tougher, the city has decided to reject recyclables mixed with regular garbage and impose fines on those who mix them together starting Oct. 1.
Since plastic bags and styrofoam are recyclable, environmentalists are worried that the public may take advantage of and abuse the privilege.
In a bid to prevent this, Yang said, the division has also been working on a promotional campaign in which the city will encourage both the public and retail stores to cut down on use of such products.
Also on the agenda is the idea of promoting the trade of goods at swap meets or flea markets.
"As the city sees a steady decrease in trash volume, recycling will become more important in the future. We would like to see the public take full advantage of resources and recycle as much as possible, because we have, after all, only one earth," she said.
Dioxin improvement projects
While 10 percent of the city's refuse goes to the Shanchuku landfill in Nankang District, the remaining 90 percent goes to the city's three incinerators in Peitou, Neihu and Mucha districts.
The Shanchuku landfill is expected to be full by June 2004, and the location of the third landfill -- which the city government hopes to operate at Neikou in Neihu, still awaits City Council approval.
Currently, the Peitou incinerator is the only incinerator running at full capacity as the other two are undergoing dioxin improvement projects.
Because the Environmental Protection Administration last October set a stricter standard on the dioxin emission level for incinerators, the BEP has budgeted more than NT$1.2 billion to improve the dioxin emission levels at two older incinerators in Neihu and Mucha and hopes to complete the two projects no later than July 2001.
According to Stephen Shen (
The NT$688.5 million, 18-month project at the Mucha incinerator plant started in June this year and is roughly 30 percent complete. Two of the four incinerators at the facility are expected to resume operations by March next year and the other two by July of that year.
Tsai Charn-jiu (
"Everything is well taken care of, 100 percent," he said.
Since the volume of trash collected has shown a substantial decrease, experts have called for the city to shut down at least one incinerator to cut costs.
Tsai, however, disapproves of the idea.
"It doesn't make much sense because they can run on a rotational basis," he said. "Or it might not be a bad idea to process the garbage of other counties and cities, but this would have to be done on a reciprocal basis and approved by the local residents and City Council."
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