The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) yesterday proposed new regulations governing volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which target specific manufacturing processes of plastics, petrochemical industries and coal-fired power plants.
The EPA launched a new draft of the vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) and polyvinyl chloride (PVC) manufacturing air pollutant regulations and emission standards.
The draft proposes to regulate the manufacturing, storage and delivery processes of VCM and PVC at 16 plants, including Ocean Plastics Co, Taiwan VCM Corp, China General Plastics Corp, and Formosa Plastics Group’s (FPC, 台塑) three plants in Yunlin and Kaohsiung.
“The International Agency for Research on Cancer has classified VCM as a Group 1 carcinogen,” EPA Department of Air Quality Protection and Noise Control Deputy Director-General Hsieh Ping-hui (謝炳輝) said.
“VCM leaks out to the environment if manufacturers’ facilities do not function properly,” the department’s senior environmental engineering specialist Tai Chung-liang (戴忠良) said, adding that the regulations aim at specific manufacturing processes rather than entire plants.
VCM leaks might account for higher VCM levels being detected around Ciaotou Elementary School’s Syucuo (許厝) branch near FPC’s plants in Yunlin’s Mailiao Township (麥寮) in previous years, he added.
Under the draft, the allowable fugitive emissions of VOCs are to be reduced from 10,000 parts per million (ppm) to 1,000ppm.
EPA Deputy Minister Chan Shun-kuei (詹順貴) said the Yunlin County Government has adopted the nation’s strictest standard — 1,000ppm — since the beginning of this year, while FPC has demonstrated that its facilities can adapt to the standard.
“As there are already commercialized techniques capable to achieve the standard, the EPA hopes to apply it nationwide,” Chan said. “Businesses only need a one-off investment, while for local residents, it would largely reduce their exposure [to air toxins].”
Meanwhile, the EPA also proposes a draft of the stationary pollution source hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) emission standards.
The draft proposes to tighten regulations of 72 HAPs that are more detrimental to human health, Hsieh said, adding that 29 pollutants are to be a first-stage target in 2020, followed by the other 43 pollutants in 2021 and 2023.
The 29 pollutants include benzene, VCM and other heavy metals emitted by coal-fired facilities and petrochemical, electricity, steelmaking and solvent-making industries, Tai said, adding that their emission standards are differentiated to account for their individual toxicities and health risks.
Taiwanese can file complaints with the Tourism Administration to report travel agencies if their activities caused termination of a person’s citizenship, Mainland Affairs Council Minister Chiu Chui-cheng (邱垂正) said yesterday, after a podcaster highlighted a case in which a person’s citizenship was canceled for receiving a single-use Chinese passport to enter Russia. The council is aware of incidents in which people who signed up through Chinese travel agencies for tours of Russia were told they could obtain Russian visas and fast-track border clearance, Chiu told reporters on the sidelines of an event in Taipei. However, the travel agencies actually applied
Japanese footwear brand Onitsuka Tiger today issued a public apology and said it has suspended an employee amid allegations that the staff member discriminated against a Vietnamese customer at its Taipei 101 store. Posting on the social media platform Threads yesterday, a user said that an employee at the store said that “those shoes are very expensive” when her friend, who is a migrant worker from Vietnam, asked for assistance. The employee then ignored her until she asked again, to which she replied: "We don't have a size 37." The post had amassed nearly 26,000 likes and 916 comments as of this
New measures aimed at making Taiwan more attractive to foreign professionals came into effect this month, the National Development Council said yesterday. Among the changes, international students at Taiwanese universities would be able to work in Taiwan without a work permit in the two years after they graduate, explainer materials provided by the council said. In addition, foreign nationals who graduated from one of the world’s top 200 universities within the past five years can also apply for a two-year open work permit. Previously, those graduates would have needed to apply for a work permit using point-based criteria or have a Taiwanese company
The Shilin District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday indicted two Taiwanese and issued a wanted notice for Pete Liu (劉作虎), founder of Shenzhen-based smartphone manufacturer OnePlus Technology Co (萬普拉斯科技), for allegedly contravening the Act Governing Relations Between the People of the Taiwan Area and the Mainland Area (臺灣地區與大陸地區人民關係條例) by poaching 70 engineers in Taiwan. Liu allegedly traveled to Taiwan at the end of 2014 and met with a Taiwanese man surnamed Lin (林) to discuss establishing a mobile software research and development (R&D) team in Taiwan, prosecutors said. Without approval from the government, Lin, following Liu’s instructions, recruited more than 70 software
RSS