Civic groups yesterday said the Cabinet’s draft of a toxic chemical substances control act is vague and full of loopholes and that a review of the bill at the legislature today should be suspended.
At a joint press conference yesterday, seven civic groups asked the government to modify its proposal to include full-scale management of toxic chemicals and compulsory disclosure of information to the public.
“The Environmental Protection Administration has listed 302 types of chemicals that are to be controlled, but if it loses control of the use of just one toxic chemical, it could affect thousands of products,” said Gaston Wu (吳家誠), a professor of chemistry at National Taiwan Normal University, noting that regulation of the approximately 79,000 types of chemical used in Taiwan is “full of loopholes” and that consumers “do not feel safe.”
Homemakers United Foundation president Chen Man-li (陳曼麗) said as a consumer and mother she is concerned about incomplete information on products and the inability to tell whether the chemical substances used as ingredients or components in products are harmful.
Each chemical substance should have only one official Chinese name so that companies cannot use different names to conceal harmful ingredients in their products, Wu said, adding that much of the information printed on products is too vague, for example using “lavender fragrance” rather than the more than 20 chemical substances used to make it.
“If the government allows manufacturers to use ‘commercially confidential information’ as an excuse for not revealing all the chemicals in products, then who is going to protect companies’ employees from long-term exposure to toxic chemicals?” said Yang Kuo-chen (楊國楨), a member of the Taiwan Association for Victims of Occupational Accidents and Diseases, adding that the act should require companies to list all the chemicals used in their products.
SPEEDING ELETRIC VEHICLES: Available without license requirements, the low-cost vehicles, especially if illicitly modified, can often reach a dangerous speed The government should crack down on illegal electric bicycles and scooters, the non-profit Consumers’ Foundation said on Friday, citing research on the potentially dangerous speed of the vehicles. Electric bicycles and lightweight electric scooters have gained popularity as they do not require registration and riders do not need licenses, the foundation said, adding that as many as 40 percent of them can reach speeds exceeding the legal limit of 25kph for non-licensed two-wheelers. Some consumers also purchased legal electric vehicles and modified them to reach higher speeds, it said. “If the government does not step up efforts to confiscate these
DIPLOMATIC MOVES: Beijing is reportedly pressing the state after reports of forming links with Taiwan, while the ministry is also planning to reopen its office in Guam soon A representative office is set to open in Somaliland at the end of this month, at the earliest, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) said yesterday amid reports that Beijing is sending a diplomatic delegation to the east African country. The ministry on July 1 announced that Taiwan and Somaliland would establish representative offices, following a report by the Somaliland Chronicle Web site. It said at the time that the two nations did not plan to establish formal ties. Somaliland President Muse Bihi Abdi has instructed close confidants to explore the possibility of “mutual recognition between Taiwan and Somaliland,” the Somaliland Chronicle reported
A Belgian man who tested positive for COVID-19 in Taiwan last week is likely to have contracted the disease in Taipei in late June, National Taiwan University (NTU) College of Public Health vice dean Tony Chen (陳秀熙) said yesterday. The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) on Saturday reported that the man, who is in his 20s, came to Taiwan for work on May 3 and tested positive on Wednesday last week as he was about to depart. The man in March reported loss of taste and smell, the center said, adding that he worked in Changhua County, but visited Taipei several times,
NEW CASE REPORTED: A man who returned from South Africa on a flight with the nation’s 460th and 461st cases has now tested positive for the disease The Central Epidemic Command Center (CECC) yesterday said that there is no need to test all arrivals to the nation for COVID-19, a policy the Executive Yuan supports. The center reported one new imported case, bringing the nation’s tally of confirmed cases to 477. The new case is a Taiwanese man in his 60s who on July 25 returned from South Africa, said Centers for Disease Control (CDC) Deputy Director-General Chuang Jen-hsiang (莊人祥), who is also the CECC’s spokesman. The man had returned to Taiwan on the same flight as cases Nos. 460 and 461, reported on July 27, Chuang said. On July 24,
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