The concept of environmental protection is slowly gaining speed and entering the consumer market, starting with green-minded businesses and hotels, the Environmental Protection Ad-ministration (EPA) said during an award ceremony capping the "2008 National Eco-friendly Hotel and Business Group Competition" in Taipei yesterday.
The purpose of the competition was to demonstrate to the business sector that by reducing consumption, reusing and recycling materials, businesses will not only cut costs, but can also "operate on a more sustainable basis because doing so results in a lower environmental impact," agency Deputy Minister Chang Feng-teng (張豐藤) said during the ceremony.
Following the recent development of the tourism industry in Taiwan, there was an urgent need for hotel owners to develop an environmental consciousness, Chang said.
"A mid-sized hotel throws away as much disposable personal items in a week as 100 families in a year," he said.
VOTES
After a two-month online voting process that received 43,000 votes, 19 winning hotels were announced yesterday, whose selection was "based on water and energy conservation policies, usage of bed sheets and towels, quantity of disposable personal items used, recycling habits and purchasing of goods bearing the EPA Green Mark," Chang said, adding that in future these efforts would be listed as standard practice guidelines for all hotels.
In the tourist hotel category, the top-five hotels were the Westin Taipei, the Formosan Naruwan Resort, the Lees Hotel (Kaohsiung), the Howard Hotel (Kaohsiung) and the Parkview Hotel (Hualien), Chang said.
In the lodging hotel category, the top five were the Landis Hotel (Taipei), the Hsin-an Business Hotel (Nantou County), the Fishers Hotel (Taipei County), the Shan-lin Resort (Nantou county) and the La Plaza Hotel (Tainan), he said.
PROGRAMS
Through its "IN is environmental protection" program, the Fisher Hotel in Taipei County's Tamsui Township (
For its part, the Hsin-an Business Hotel offers a NT$200 discount on rooms for guests who agree not to change bed sheets and towels from the second night on, he said.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
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