Taiwan's efforts to recycle old computers have been praised by representatives of several Asian countries, who attended a recent international workshop held by the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA).
EPA officials said yesterday that international cooperation in the field of recycling technologies would be carried out soon.
In addition to attending the workshop, environmental officials and waste management experts from Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Brunei, Malaysia, the Philippines and Palau also visited the Super Dragon Technology Co (佳龍科技股份有限公司) in Taoyuan County recently, where old computers are processed.
After observing the dismantling, crunching, classifying and recycling of useful metals -- such as gold, silver and copper -- the visitors were full of praise.
A high-ranking environmental official from Indonesia, Teguh Irawan, expressed to EPA officials his desire to import recycling-related technologies.
EPA officials said yesterday at a press conference that Taiwan has been playing a key role in recycling used electronics because existing recycling policies, first implemented in July 1998, had made Taiwan the first country to conduct compulsory recycling of used computer hardware, including central processing units, monitors and notebook computers.
By the end of October this year, EPA officials said, about 1,400,000 used computers had been recycled. EPA officials said they were satisfied with the recycling rate -- about 75 percent of all used computers.
EPA officials said yesterday that recycling old computer hardware was important in Taiwan, which is the world's third-largest producer of IT equipment. EPA officials said efforts made on IT-related environmental protection could improve the competitive ability of Taiwan's IT industry.
"Taiwan is approaching another stage of environmental protection in which recycling policy will have a high priority," Lin Jun-yi (林俊義), head of the EPA, said yesterday.
Environmentalists, however, said that difficulties encountered by the EPA included the fast growth of municipal waste, a shortage of landfills and loopholes in the recycling process. In addition, officials cited the inefficiencies and mismanagement of the organization responsible for recycling which preceded the EPA's Resource Recycling Fund Management Committee (資源回收基金管理委員會).
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Five flights have been arranged to help nearly 2,000 Taiwanese tourists return home from Okinawa after being stranded due to cruise ship maintenance issues, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications announced yesterday. China Airlines Ltd (中華航空), and EVA Airways Corp (長榮航空) have arranged five flights with a total of 748 additional seats to transport 1,857 passengers from the MSC Bellissima back to Taiwan, the ministry said. The flights have been scheduled for yesterday and today by the Civil Aviation Administration, with the cruise operator covering all associated costs. The MSC Bellissima, carrying 4,341 passengers, departed from Keelung on Wednesday last week for Okinawa,
China is deploying its largest navy fleet in regional waters in nearly three decades, posing a threat to Taiwan that is more pronounced than previous Chinese war games, the Ministry of National Defense said today. Speaking in Taipei, ministry spokesperson Sun Li-fang (孫立方) said the scale of the current Chinese naval deployment in an area running from the southern Japanese islands down into the South China Sea was the largest since China held war games around Taiwan ahead of 1996 Taiwanese presidential elections. China's military has yet to comment and has not confirmed it is carrying out any exercises. "The current scale is
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