A major printing company in Greater Taichung yesterday admitted to using a toxic industrial solvent to remove smudges on food and drink containers, as the authorities moved to close down its operations and order an immediate recall of its products.
Huang Guan Special Printers makes hundreds of millions of paper containers and counts several well-established firms among its customers, including China Airlines and the Ding Tai Fung restaurant chain.
Both China Airlines and Ding Tai Fung immediately stopped using the containers, the companies said shortly after learning about the contamination.
Huang Guan general manager Chu Ming-yao (朱明耀) bowed and apologized at a press conference after the Chinese-language Apple Daily yesterday reported that the company’s workers use toluene to wipe stains off paper boxes and cups widely used for take-out food and drinks.
The containers get smudged because the printing machines the firm uses are old and defective, the newspaper quoted a former Huang Guan employee as saying.
If inhaled or ingested, toluene, a water-insoluble liquid often used in nail polish and paint, can cause drowsiness, headaches, nausea and even death as a result of kidney or liver failure.
Health officials in Greater Taichung handed Huang Guan a NT$1.5 million (US$50,000) fine and ordered it to stop its container production immediately.
The company gave the officials a list of 50 customers that are being asked by the authorities to remove any of the contaminated containers already on the market.
Huang Guan is the nation’s fourth-largest supplier of paper food and drink containers.
Taiwan has received more than US$70 million in royalties as of the end of last year from developing the F-16V jet as countries worldwide purchase or upgrade to this popular model, government and military officials said on Saturday. Taiwan funded the development of the F-16V jet and ended up the sole investor as other countries withdrew from the program. Now the F-16V is increasingly popular and countries must pay Taiwan a percentage in royalties when they purchase new F-16V aircraft or upgrade older F-16 models. The next five years are expected to be the peak for these royalties, with Taiwan potentially earning
STAY IN YOUR LANE: As the US and Israel attack Iran, the ministry has warned China not to overstep by including Taiwanese citizens in its evacuation orders The Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) yesterday rebuked a statement by China’s embassy in Israel that it would evacuate Taiwanese holders of Chinese travel documents from Israel amid the latter’s escalating conflict with Iran. Tensions have risen across the Middle East in the wake of US and Israeli airstrikes on Iran beginning Saturday. China subsequently issued an evacuation notice for its citizens. In a news release, the Chinese embassy in Israel said holders of “Taiwan compatriot permits (台胞證)” issued to Taiwanese nationals by Chinese authorities for travel to China — could register for evacuation to Egypt. In Taipei, the ministry yesterday said Taiwan
Taiwan is awaiting official notification from the US regarding the status of the Agreement on Reciprocal Trade (ART) after the US Supreme Court ruled US President Donald Trump's global tariffs unconstitutional. Speaking to reporters before a legislative hearing today, Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) said that Taiwan's negotiation team remains focused on ensuring that the bilateral trade deal remains intact despite the legal challenge to Trump's tariff policy. "The US has pledged to notify its trade partners once the subsequent administrative and legal processes are finalized, and that certainly includes Taiwan," Cho said when asked about opposition parties’ doubts that the ART was
If China chose to invade Taiwan tomorrow, it would only have to sever three undersea fiber-optic cable clusters to cause a data blackout, Jason Hsu (許毓仁), a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute and former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) legislator, told a US security panel yesterday. In a Taiwan contingency, cable disruption would be one of the earliest preinvasion actions and the signal that escalation had begun, he said, adding that Taiwan’s current cable repair capabilities are insufficient. The US-China Economic and Security Review Commission (USCC) yesterday held a hearing on US-China Competition Under the Sea, with Hsu speaking on
RSS