A plastic bottle used for motor oil produced by CPC Corp, Taiwan, (CPC) was among the garbage collected by US Greenpeace campaigners in the North Pacific Ocean, and might have been adrift there for more than a decade, Greenpeace Taiwan said yesterday.
The bottle bears the company’s previous Chinese-language mark, “Chinese Petroleum Corp,” before it changed its name in 2007, a testament to its having been drifting in the ocean for at least 11 years, Greenpeace Taiwan said.
The bottle was discovered by a group of US Greenpeace members whose ocean cleanup in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch ended earlier this month, it said.
Located halfway between California and Hawaii, the patch covers 1.6 million square kilometers and consists of 1.8 trillion pieces of plastic garbage, according to a study published by scientists affiliated with the Ocean Cleanup Foundation in the March issue of Scientific Reports.
During the cleanup, Greenpeace members found plastic bottles produced by beverage makers such as Coca-Cola, Unilever, Wahaha and Kang Shi Fu as well as chemical developers Bayer, Cloralex and Kao Bleach, it said.
Microplastics — small plastic pieces less than 5mm in diameter — can absorb toxic chemicals and heavy metal substances, and might affect the health of animals when they ingest the particles along with food, it said.
The amount of plastic debris that it found in the patch was 11 times more than its previous samplings off the coast of US major cities such as Los Angles, San Francisco, San Diego, New York and Miami, US Greenpeace said in a news release on Oct. 17.
“Coca-Cola was the worst corporate plastic polluter, found in 40 of 42 countries overall. Greenpeace found a Coca-Cola bottle from China, produced more than 1,000 miles [1,609km] from where it was found in the garbage patch,” it said.
‘DENIAL DEFENSE’: The US would increase its military presence with uncrewed ships, and submarines, while boosting defense in the Indo-Pacific, a Pete Hegseth memo said The US is reorienting its military strategy to focus primarily on deterring a potential Chinese invasion of Taiwan, a memo signed by US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth showed. The memo also called on Taiwan to increase its defense spending. The document, known as the “Interim National Defense Strategic Guidance,” was distributed this month and detailed the national defense plans of US President Donald Trump’s administration, an article in the Washington Post said on Saturday. It outlines how the US can prepare for a potential war with China and defend itself from threats in the “near abroad,” including Greenland and the Panama
The High Prosecutors’ Office yesterday withdrew an appeal against the acquittal of a former bank manager 22 years after his death, marking Taiwan’s first instance of prosecutors rendering posthumous justice to a wrongfully convicted defendant. Chu Ching-en (諸慶恩) — formerly a manager at the Taipei branch of BNP Paribas — was in 1999 accused by Weng Mao-chung (翁茂鍾), then-president of Chia Her Industrial Co, of forging a request for a fixed deposit of US$10 million by I-Hwa Industrial Co, a subsidiary of Chia Her, which was used as collateral. Chu was ruled not guilty in the first trial, but was found guilty
A wild live dugong was found in Taiwan for the first time in 88 years, after it was accidentally caught by a fisher’s net on Tuesday in Yilan County’s Fenniaolin (粉鳥林). This is the first sighting of the species in Taiwan since 1937, having already been considered “extinct” in the country and considered as “vulnerable” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature. A fisher surnamed Chen (陳) went to Fenniaolin to collect the fish in his netting, but instead caught a 3m long, 500kg dugong. The fisher released the animal back into the wild, not realizing it was an endangered species at
DEADLOCK: As the commission is unable to forum a quorum to review license renewal applications, the channel operators are not at fault and can air past their license date The National Communications Commission (NCC) yesterday said that the Public Television Service (PTS) and 36 other television and radio broadcasters could continue airing, despite the commission’s inability to meet a quorum to review their license renewal applications. The licenses of PTS and the other channels are set to expire between this month and June. The National Communications Commission Organization Act (國家通訊傳播委員會組織法) stipulates that the commission must meet the mandated quorum of four to hold a valid meeting. The seven-member commission currently has only three commissioners. “We have informed the channel operators of the progress we have made in reviewing their license renewal applications, and
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