Local paper producers have pledged to step up investment in the research and development of technologies that could enable Taiwan to fully recycle its paper waste of 140,000 tonnes per year.
Taiwanese use about 8 billion paper containers per year, and many people assume that they can be fully recycled, the Environmental Protection Administration said.
Despite government efforts to raise awareness about the correct disposal of garbage, 12 to 15 percent of items collected for paper recycling are not suitable, according to the companies involved in the effort, which include Cheng Loong Corp, Chung Hwa Pulp Corp.
Corporate representatives said that laminated and non-laminated paper items must be recycled separately, adding that only the latter can be recycled into containers for food.
Recycling laminated items is more complicated, as the layers have to be separated, they said.
Separating the layers during recycling does not cause environmental damage, Cheng Loong said.
However, it is easiest to use fresh pulp to make paper containers for food, it added.
Cheng Loong said it last year recycled 30,000 tonnes of laminated paper products, adding that materials used in their insulation layers were processed into fuel to power paper mills.
Chung Hwa said products sold under its CircuWell brand, which are mainly exported or sold to airlines, are easier to recycle into paper cups and other containers.
Its products use a heat and oil-resistant coating that is different from insulation materials used by other companies, the company said, adding that its products meet food safety regulations in Taiwan and the US.
An essay competition jointly organized by a local writing society and a publisher affiliated with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) might have contravened 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), the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) said on Thursday. “In this case, the partner organization is clearly an agency under the CCP’s Fujian Provincial Committee,” MAC Deputy Minister and spokesperson Liang Wen-chieh (梁文傑) said at a news briefing in Taipei. “It also involves bringing Taiwanese students to China with all-expenses-paid arrangements to attend award ceremonies and camps,” Liang said. Those two “characteristics” are typically sufficient
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The brilliant blue waters, thick foliage and bucolic atmosphere on this seemingly idyllic archipelago deep in the Pacific Ocean belie the key role it now plays in a titanic geopolitical struggle. Palau is again on the front line as China, and the US and its allies prepare their forces in an intensifying contest for control over the Asia-Pacific region. The democratic nation of just 17,000 people hosts US-controlled airstrips and soon-to-be-completed radar installations that the US military describes as “critical” to monitoring vast swathes of water and airspace. It is also a key piece of the second island chain, a string of
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