Taichung councilors on Tuesday last week called for a longer grace period before people are fined for improper sorting food waste, as the city plans to mandate that raw and cooked food waste be separated from next year.
The Taichung Environmental Protection Bureau needs to publicize the policy more to avoid fines being issued solely because people are ignorant of the sorting rules, Taichung city councilors Lin Te-yu (林德宇) and Chen Shih-kai (陳世凱) said.
At the same time, the city must improve recycling efficiency and incentives for policy compliance, they added.
Photo: Su Chin-feng, Taipei Times
The city previously only accepted cooked food waste, bureau Director-General Chen Hung-yi (陳宏益) said, adding that central Taiwan has fewer pig farms than the south, but still accepted waste from Taipei and New Taipei City, so processing capacity was insufficient.
In 2018, Taichung’s Waipu District (外埔) opened the nation’s first biomass energy plant, which can generate up to NT$50,000 in electricity per day from rice straw and food waste.
To ensure that the Waipu Green Energy Ecological Park runs at full capacity, the city collects raw food waste, Chen Hung-yi said.
This includes accepting raw waste from across the nation, as well as having city residents practice the new sorting rules, he said.
In 2019, Taichung could process 40g of food waste per person per day, Lin told a city council meeting on Tuesday last week, citing Environmental Protection Administration data.
Although capacity last year improved to 67g per person, it remains well behind Tainan’s 89g and New Taipei City’s 86g, he said.
Most apartment complexes hire refuse services, Lin said.
Many of the services do not separate raw and cooked food waste, and throw out food waste with general refuse, reducing incinerator efficiency, he added.
The ordinance is to take effect in January, but many residents are still unaware that the rules are changing, Lin said, calling on the bureau to better publicize the policy and to warn offenders before issuing fines.
“Carrots and sticks are both important,” he said, adding that price incentives and fines are needed for the policy to succeed.
The city has four months to publicize the rules before they take effect, Chen Hung-yi said, vowing to improve education efforts.
The bureau would secure the cooperation of housing communities in adding separate collection bins, he said.
As raw waste must be transported out to Waipu, the cost is not cheap, he said, adding that the bureau would incentivize collection services to sort and ship the waste.
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