Heat packs, used by many people as hand warmers during the winter months, can be reused for deodorization and moisture absorption after they have lost their heating function, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) said on Tuesday, adding that people should dispose of used heat packs separate from general or recycling garbage.
The agency made the announcement in light of increased sales of heat packs in the past few weeks.
Heat packs are made up of composite materials including iron powder, salts and absorbent polymers, and heat up due to oxidization when exposed to the air and moisture.
The composite materials in the heat packs cannot be efficiently recycled and might pose an environmental pollution risk if disposed of in landfills, the agency said.
People should therefore repurpose heat packs, it said, adding that people could for example place them in their cabinets or wardrobe, as the active carbon in the used packs efficiently absorbs moisture and smells.
To dispose of heat packs, people should give them to garbage collectors, who would bring them to an incinerator, the agency said.
The incinerators’ filtration system would be able to prevent toxic materials that might be in heat packs from being released into the atmosphere, it added.
To limit the use of heat packs potentially harmful to the environment, the agency urged the public to instead use electric heaters or air conditioners that are also more energy-efficient.
Additional reporting by CNA
The Taipei Department of Health yesterday said it has launched a probe into a restaurant at Far Eastern Sogo Xinyi A13 Department Store after a customer died of suspected food poisoning. A preliminary investigation on Sunday found missing employee health status reports and unsanitary kitchen utensils at Polam Kopitiam (寶林茶室) in the department store’s basement food court, the department said. No direct relationship between the food poisoning death and the restaurant was established, as no food from the day of the incident was available for testing and no other customers had reported health complaints, it said, adding that the investigation is ongoing. Later
REVENGE TRAVEL: A surge in ticket prices should ease this year, but inflation would likely keep tickets at a higher price than before the pandemic Scoot is to offer six additional flights between Singapore and Northeast Asia, with all routes transiting Taipei from April 1, as the budget airline continues to resume operations that were paused during the COVID-19 pandemic, a Scoot official said on Thursday. Vice president of sales Lee Yong Sin (李榮新) said at a gathering with reporters in Taipei that the number of flights from Singapore to Japan and South Korea with a stop in Taiwan would increase from 15 to 21 each week. That change means the number of the Singapore-Taiwan-Tokyo flights per week would increase from seven to 12, while Singapore-Taiwan-Seoul
POOR PREPARATION: Cultures can form on food that is out of refrigeration for too long and cooking does not reliably neutralize their toxins, an epidemiologist said Medical professionals yesterday said that suspected food poisoning deaths revolving around a restaurant at Far Eastern Department Store Xinyi A13 Store in Taipei could have been caused by one of several types of bacterium. Ho Mei-shang (何美鄉), an epidemiologist at Academia Sinica’s Institute of Biomedical Sciences, wrote on Facebook that the death of a 39-year-old customer of the restaurant suggests the toxin involved was either “highly potent or present in massive large quantities.” People who ate at the restaurant showed symptoms within hours of consuming the food, suggesting that the poisoning resulted from contamination by a toxin and not infection of the
BAD NEIGHBORS: China took fourth place among countries spreading disinformation, with Hong Kong being used as a hub to spread propaganda, a V-Dem study found Taiwan has been rated as the country most affected by disinformation for the 11th consecutive year in a study by the global research project Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem). The nation continues to be a target of disinformation originating from China, and Hong Kong is increasingly being used as a base from which to disseminate that disinformation, the report said. After Taiwan, Latvia and Palestine ranked second and third respectively, while Nicaragua, North Korea, Venezuela and China, in that order, were the countries that spread the most disinformation, the report said. Each country listed in the report was given a score,