From September, the manufacture, importation and sale of zinc manganese and non-button cell alkaline manganese batteries with a mercury content exceeding 5 parts per million (ppm) is to be prohibited, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) announced yesterday.
Anyone found manufacturing or importing non-compliant batteries will be subject to fines ranging from NT$60,000 (US$1,847) to NT$300,000, with NT$1,200 to NT$6,000 penalties for their sale.
Tests carried out last year by the EPA showed that the mercury levels of around 10 percent of dry cell batteries on the market exceeded 5 ppm, and that some batteries imported from China had mercury levels as high as 848 times that level. The EPA estimates that 1.47 percent of batteries on the market, or 117 tonnes annually, have an excessively high mercury content.
A draft amendment to Article 21 of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法) requires "the restriction of manufacturing, import, sales and use" of the batteries.
Although the new restrictions are due to take effect in September, strict requirements for the inclusion of a battery's mercury content on its casing will only come into effect in December.
According to the EPA, it is possible to produce cylindrical zinc-manganese and alkaline-manganese batteries without using mercury. However, at present there are no substitution technologies mature enough to produce button cell mercuric oxide, silver oxide, zinc-air or alkaline-manganese varieties.
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
US President Donald Trump said "it’s up to" Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) what China does on Taiwan, but that he would be "very unhappy" with a change in the "status quo," the New York Times said in an interview published yesterday. Xi "considers it to be a part of China, and that’s up to him what he’s going to be doing," Trump told the newspaper on Wednesday. "But I’ve expressed to him that I would be very unhappy if he did that, and I don’t think he’ll do that," he added. "I hope he doesn’t do that." Trump made the comments in
Tourism in Kenting fell to a historic low for the second consecutive year last year, impacting hotels and other local businesses that rely on a steady stream of domestic tourists, the latest data showed. A total of 2.139 million tourists visited Kenting last year, down slightly from 2.14 million in 2024, the data showed. The number of tourists who visited the national park on the Hengchun Peninsula peaked in 2015 at 8.37 million people. That number has been below 2.2 million for two years, although there was a spike in October last year due to multiple long weekends. The occupancy rate for hotels
A cold surge advisory was today issued for 18 cities and counties across Taiwan, with temperatures of below 10°C forecast during the day and into tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. New Taipei City, Taipei, Taoyuan and Hsinchu, Miaoli and Yilan counties are expected to experience sustained temperatures of 10°C or lower, the CWA said. Temperatures are likely to temporarily drop below 10°C in most other areas, except Taitung, Pingtung, Penghu and Lienchiang (Matsu) counties, CWA data showed. The cold weather is being caused by a strong continental cold air mass, combined with radiative cooling, a process in which heat escapes from
RSS