The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday said it has established an Illegal Dumping Management System, which uses GPS on garbage trucks, security cameras on waste treatment facilities and satellite remote sensing technologies to combat illegal dumping.
Department of Waste Management director-general Wu Tien-chi (吳天基) said an information system for illegal dumping sites was set up in 2004 for environmental police units and local governmental agencies to report such sites and for the public to query where the locations of the sites.
“However, cases of illegal dumping continued, such as aluminum waste slag found illegally dumped near Highway No. 61 in Greater Kaoshiung last year,” Wu said.
The updated system integrates new monitoring technologies to provide precise information on the existing sites and to help prevent illegal dumping using strict surveillance devices, the EPA said.
The system is open to the public, environmental protection bureaus and judicial agencies to respond as quick as possible, Wu said.
About 160 sites that have not been cleaned up are listed in the system. The largest number of illegal sites, 51, were located in Greater Tainan, followed by Changhua County with 31. Wu said the reason so many sites were in these areas might be because of the large amount of industrial waste dumped along Greater Tainan’s Er-ren River (二仁溪) in the past and along rivers in Changhua County.
The EPA said it was unable to disclose the total amount of illegally dumped waste and detailed information on the 160 sites, only saying that the sites were undergoing clean up and that that figure would be announced in April.
Wu said a severe case in Greater Taichung contained more then 100,000 tonnes of waste at one site. In addition, Wu said a public hearing on modifying the draft regulations for managing the use of general waste — recycled ash from incinerators — and the key point of the modified draft regulation were to limit the use of recycled ash to indirect agricultural use (farmhouse and farm roads), but would strictly be prohibited for direct agricultural use (growing crops, rearing live stock, or cultivated farming).
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