The Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) proposal to impose a garbage-bag fee policy nationwide is unlikely to succeed outside of the larger municipalities, critics say, though some officials think it might work if given sufficient lead time.
Environmental Protection Administration Minister Lee Ying-yuan (李應元) on Monday told lawmakers that the policy of collecting garbage fees through the mandatory use of special garbage bags, which was rolled out in Taipei in 2000 and New Taipei City in 2010, has produced good results and it would be a good idea to implement the policy in cities and counties nationwide.
Chang Yi-cheng (張益誠), an assistant professor of environmental engineering at National Ilan University, said that he is concerned that residents in rural areas will protest the use of the bags if they are made mandatory.
Photo: Peter Lo, Taipei Times
While Taipei has had good results from the bag program, it was appropriate to start the policy at the special municipality level, he said.
“However, the policy is unlikely to succeed in remote areas, where people are less knowledgeable about environmental impact and waste management. People there are likely to dump their waste in public if you charge for bags,” he said.
One supporter of the idea is Conservation Mothers Foundation chairwoman Chou Chun-ti (周春娣), who said the EPA has delayed a nationwide bag policy for too long.
Given how quickly the EPA’s recycling division made headway after its introduction, a six-month period should be sufficient lead time to introduce a nationwide bag program, Chou said.
The idea of introducing mandatory fee bags was first brought up in 1990 after a pileup of trash and other waste caused by the lack of sufficient incinerators forced the government into action, she said.
Taipei was the first to take action, but at the time county and other municipal governments were not confident they could enforce the measure, and then after new incinerators were built the idea was forgotten, Chou said.
The problem of excessive waste has re-emerged because it was never properly handled in the first place she said.
As the amount of waste produced has grown, so has the burden on incinerators and the issue can never be resolved until garbage production is controlled through the use of fee-attached bags, she said.
“Taiwan is still behind other developed countries … we need to impel the public to reduce and separate their waste by charging collection fees,” Chou said.
She said she hopes Lee has the courage to implement the policy and said that the foundation was ready to help with promotional efforts.
The EPA said that since the garbage-bag fee was introduced in 2000 the amount of waste produced by Taipei households has been reduced from 2,970 tonnes a day to 980 tonnes — a 66 percent reduction.
Taipei Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Liou Ming-lone (劉銘龍) said if the measure is to be effective nationwide there need to be designated locations for purchasing the bags and an anti-counterfeit measure in place to prevent the use of forged bags.
Taipei would be happy to share its success story with other cities and counties, Liou said.
However, Taoyuan Department of Environmental Protection Director Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said that despite the success of the policy in Taipei and New Taipei City, it should not be launched nationwide yet.
Taoyuan needs time to research the feasibility of implementing the policy, he said.
Many Taoyuan residents are likely to try to save money by tossing their garbage in public trash cans or neighboring areas, he said, adding that enforcing a mandatory bag policy would require the department to hire more workers.
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