A backlog of 8,000 tonnes of unprocessed garbage has sparked a war of words between Hsinchu County Commissioner Chiu Ching-chun (邱鏡淳) of the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Democratic Progressive Party Hsinchu County commissioner candidate Cheng Chao-fang (鄭朝方).
Chiu has repeatedly suggested that some unnamed people have highlighted the garbage issue for political gain.
He called Cheng’s proposal to create a waste disposal cooperative with Taoyuan and Miaoli County “cliched” and claimed that his administration last year had made an identical proposal, which was turned down by the Hsinchu City Government.
Photo: Huang Mei-chu, Taipei Times
The county government would again submit the proposal to Hsinchu Mayor Lin Chih-chien (林智堅) in the near future, Chiu said.
The county government has signed a contract with a food waste treatment plant in Hsinfeng Township (新豐) to increase the region’s disposal capacity and has opened bidding to recycle waste from landfills into industrial fuel, he said.
Cheng’s campaign office said that Chiu’s negligence over his two terms in office have caused the garbage problem, adding that the public’s trust in and patience for Chiu and Hsinchu County Deputy Commissioner Yang Wen-ke (楊文科) have run out.
Yang is the KMT’s candidate for Hsinchu County commissioner.
Separately, the Hsinchu City Bureau of Environmental Protection said in a statement that the city’s incineration plant processes 150 tonnes of the county’s waste each day, equivalent to 70 percent of the county’s daily trash.
“Instead of politicizing the waste problem, the county should develop long-term plans for waste disposal on its own,” the bureau said.
The county government is responsible for disposing of or utilizing the incinerator residue from its waste, as the issue is outside of the regional cooperation proposal, the bureau said.
According to its calculations, processing the county’s waste has generated 6,659 tonnes of incinerator residue and 2,220 tonnes of fly ash monolith, the bureau said, adding that the city government expects the county to take responsibility for the problem.
Taiwanese scientists have engineered plants that can capture about 50 percent more carbon dioxide and produce more than twice as many seeds as unmodified plants, a breakthrough they hope could one day help mitigate global warming and grow more food staples such as rice. If applied to major food crops, the new system could cut carbon emissions and raise yields “without additional equipment or labor costs,” Academia Sinica researcher and lead author the study Lu Kuan-jen (呂冠箴) said. Academia Sinica president James Liao (廖俊智) said that as humans emit 9.6 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide compared with the 220 billion tonnes absorbed
The Taipei Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) Wanda-Zhonghe Line is 81.7 percent complete, with public opening targeted for the end of 2027, New Taipei City Mayor Hou You-yi (侯友宜) said today. Surrounding roads are to be open to the public by the end of next year, Hou said during an inspection of construction progress. The 9.5km line, featuring nine underground stations and one depot, is expected to connect Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall Station to Chukuang Station in New Taipei City’s Jhonghe District (中和). All 18 tunnels for the line are complete, while the main structures of the stations and depot are mostly finished, he
Taipei is to implement widespread road closures around Taipei 101 on Friday to make way for large crowds during the Double Ten National Day celebration, the Taipei Department of Transportation said. A four-minute fireworks display is to be launched from the skyscraper, along with a performance by 500 drones flying in formation above the nearby Nanshan A21 site, starting at 10pm. Vehicle restrictions would occur in phases, they said. From 5pm to 9pm, inner lanes of Songshou Road between Taipei City Hall and Taipei 101 are to be closed, with only the outer lanes remaining open. Between 9pm and 9:40pm, the section is
China’s plan to deploy a new hypersonic ballistic missile at a Chinese People’s Liberation Army Rocket Force (PLARF) base near Taiwan likely targets US airbases and ships in the western Pacific, but it would also present new threats to Taiwan, defense experts said. The New York Times — citing a US Department of Defense report from last year on China’s military power — on Monday reported in an article titled “The missiles threatening Taiwan” that China has stockpiled 3,500 missiles, 1.5 times more than four years earlier. Although it is unclear how many of those missiles were targeting Taiwan, the newspaper reported
RSS