A Taiwanese startup has launched an online fund-raising campaign to attract interest from the US private sector to help start a marketing campaign for its personal electroplater, which could turn average citizens into polluters, thereby posing a threat to the environment, environmentalists said yesterday.
Members of the Trees Party and the Taiwan Water Resources Protection Union (TWWPU) yesterday rallied in front of the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) building to call for a preemptive prohibition of the sale of the device in Taiwan.
The electroplater, developed by Taiwanese startup Monolith Studio, allows users to apply different types of metal coatings to items, such as handmade crafts, accessories and action figures.
The demonstrators said that the developers plan to market the device in the US, China and Taiwan.
Trees Party chief strategy officer Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said electroplating involves the use of metal sulfides, which release sulfuric acid into the atmosphere and discharge heavy metals and cyanides into wastewater.
He said that users of the tabletop device would most likely flush waste liquids down their household drains, but the nation’s wastewater processing plants are unable to filter out heavy metals and cyanides.
Moreover, the sewage system for domestic wastewater has a coverage rate of just about 36 percent, meaning the remaining runoff would be discharged into groundwater, lakes, rivers and streams, before reaching the ocean.
He said the even though the startup said that users can ship the waste liquids to its headquarters for recycling, a survey conducted by the party found no parcel delivery companies that are permitted to deliver toxic waste liquids.
The problematic runoff represents a risk to food safety, since the substances would enter the food supply chain through contaminated fields and seafood, he said.
Pan described the electroplater as an invention that causes pollution while possessing little value in serving its ostensible purpose of promoting culture and creativity.
Trees Party cochair Lin Chia-yu (林佳諭) called on the EPA to take preemptive action against the electroplater by publicly announcing its objection to the possibility of the device being sold domestically.
Referring to last year’s adulterated cooking oil scandal, Lin said that even though the pollution caused by the electroplater might be generated in small quantities, the resulting waste would become impossible for the nation to manage once the product is marketed widely.
TWWPU director Jennifer Nien (粘麗玉) echoed Lin’s remarks, saying that rice paddies in her hometown of Changhua County have suffered extensively from heavy metal contamination.
A region with cadmium-tainted rice fields has become a wasteland, she added.
In response, EPA Department of Water Quality Deputy Director-General Liu Jui-hsiang (劉瑞祥) said the EPA cracks down on violators only after obtaining solid proof substantiating acts of pollution.
He said that the EPA would call an internal meeting regarding how to address the issue after gaining a better understanding of the electroplater.
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