A legislator accused the military of allowing the dumping of construction rubble in unauthorized areas after he was sent a videorecording of trucks dumping waste, allegedly from a military construction site.
Military officials said that they would investigate whether the waste-processing contractor for the site was breaking regulations.
Taiwan Solidarity Union (TSU) Legislator Tseng Tsahn-deng (
Trucks had been videoed earlier this month dumping rubble from the renovation project on empty land adjacent to National Highway No.3, a considerable distance from Miaoli County, Tseng told a press conference.
The Sixth Army Corps was supposedly overseeing the renovation project, but its personnel were nowhere to be seen in the video, he said, even though all the time schedules of the trucks had been stamped with the corps' authorization.
Tseng suggested that the video raised questions on whether the military was faking documents.
He also said that many of the trucks shown in the video did not belong to the designated waste contractor but to another company.
Military officials said at the press conference that they would look into the allegations, but gave assurances that the military was not responsible for allowing the random dumping of debris.
They said they would also investigate whether the contractor was using trucks that had not been registered and authorized by the corps.
Although there were no military personnel at the Taoyuan renovation site, one soldier always accompanied one of the trucks hauling away the rubble, the officials said.
Tseng said that the waste being dumped along the freeway included metal strips, debris and wood, all of which are classified as B8-type waste by the Construction and Planning Agency.
However, the military had registered the waste from the renovation project as B5-type, or just concrete shards.
Tseng said that B5-type waste is cheaper to process and that by dumping metal and other material into B5-waste land, the military was responsible for causing severe land pollution.
According to the provisions of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), the dumping of waste in non-designated areas is subject to a fine of NT$3 million (US$91,841), and a prison sentence of between one and five years.
Officials from the Environmental Protection Agency and the environmental police team under the National Police Agency said that if the Ministry of Defense provided sufficient information on its renovation sites, they would subsequently investigate each military residence construction site to see if any illegal dumping was occurring.
Tseng urged the ministry to seal-off the land where the waste was allegedly illegally dumped and begin an investigation immediately.
A magnitude 6.4 earthquake struck off the coast of Hualien County in eastern Taiwan at 7pm yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. The epicenter of the temblor was at sea, about 69.9km south of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 30.9km, it said. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake’s intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County’s Changbin Township (長濱), where it measured 5 on Taiwan’s seven-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 4 in Hualien, Nantou, Chiayi, Yunlin, Changhua and Miaoli counties, as well as
Taiwan is to have nine extended holidays next year, led by a nine-day Lunar New Year break, the Cabinet announced yesterday. The nine-day Lunar New Year holiday next year matches the length of this year’s holiday, which featured six extended holidays. The increase in extended holidays is due to the Act on the Implementation of Commemorative and Festival Holidays (紀念日及節日實施條例), which was passed early last month with support from the opposition Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party. Under the new act, the day before Lunar New Year’s Eve is also a national holiday, and Labor Day would no longer be limited
COMMITMENTS: The company had a relatively low renewable ratio at 56 percent and did not have any goal to achieve 100 percent renewable energy, the report said Pegatron Corp ranked the lowest among five major final assembly suppliers in progressing toward Apple Inc’s commitment to be 100 percent carbon neutral by 2030, a Greenpeace East Asia report said yesterday. While Apple has set the goal of using 100 percent renewable energy across its entire business, supply chain and product lifecycle by 2030, carbon emissions from electronics manufacturing are rising globally due to increased energy consumption, it said. Given that carbon emissions from its supply chain accounted for more than half of its total emissions last year, Greenpeace East Asia evaluated the green transition performance of Apple’s five largest final
The first tropical storm of the year in the western North Pacific, Wutip (蝴蝶), has formed over the South China Sea and is expected to move toward Hainan Island off southern China, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said today. The agency said a tropical depression over waters near the Paracel and Zhongsha islands strengthened into a tropical storm this morning. The storm had maximum sustained winds near its center of 64.8kph, with peak gusts reaching 90kph, it said. Winds at Beaufort scale level 7 — ranging from 50kph to 61.5kph — extended up to 80km from the center, it added. Forecaster Kuan Hsin-ping
RSS