Environmentalists yesterday called on the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) to give careful consideration to a proposed policy that would cancel rewards for recycling PET bottles.
Reports say the EPA is to announce the cancelation of the reward scheme in early March. The EPA would, however, offer a grace period -- lasting until the end of July -- to PET bottle manufacturers, retailers who recycle the product and consumers to help them adapt to the changes.
Based on conclusions made on Thursday at a public hearing, environmental officials said the cancelation would be announced shortly in order to ease financial losses mounting from the current PET recycling policy.
Last year, the EPA lost NT$500 million on the recycling project.
Over the last ten years the total financial loss from recycling PET bottles has reached NT$2.3 billion.
In 1992, the EPA began promoting the recycling of PET bottles, such as those that contain water, by offering a reward of NT$2 for each PET bottle sent to be recycled.
At that time, the recycling rate was about 80 percent. In 1997, the reward was reduced to NT$1 to offset growing financial losses. In April 2000, the reward was reduced to NT$0.5.
Now that environmental officials want to do away with the reward system entirely, environmentalists are becoming concerned.
"We environmentalists believe that economic incentives still play a key role in promoting the recycling of PET bottles," Mary Chen (陳曼麗), board chairperson of the Homemakers' Union and Foundation (主婦聯盟), told the Taipei Times yesterday.
If the reward system is canceled, Chen said, recycling 1kg of PET material will earn the recycler just NT$15.6. The results would seriously affect those who make a living by recycling materials and displease those who support recycling policies.
Chen said that the EPA should carry out stricter audits of dishonest PET-bottle manufacturers as some companies have understated their production of PET bottles in order to pay less in fees to offset the refund money paid to consumers for handing in the bottles.
"If the EPA cancels the reward system, environmentalists will carefully monitor the future recycling rate to see the impact of this decision," Chen said.
Environmental officials said early this month that losses from recycling PET bottles decreased to just NT$141 million last year, indicating that the situation was improving.
The EPA came up with its strategy to cancel the reward system two months ago, but due to the political turbulence created by the Cabinet reshuffle in early January, policies with major impacts were temporarily shelved.
PET bottle manufacturers early this month asked the EPA to delay until June the announcement that the reward system would be canceled, but they said they received no positive answer from officials.
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