The Ministry of Environment on Tuesday opened a six-day exposition featuring circular economy innovations, saying that Taiwan is recycling a majority of its industrial and household waste.
Taiwanese industries and households produce 21 million tonnes and 11 million tonnes of refuse while recycling 85 percent and 60 percent respectively, Deputy Minister of Environment Shen Chih-hsiu (沈志修) said at the expo’s launch at the National Taiwan Science Education Center (NTSEC) in Taipei.
The nation’s enterprises created NT$70 billion (US$2.17 billion) of value thanks to circular economy innovations that reclaimed waste, he said, adding that Taiwan aims to implement sustainable development at the point of origin.
Photo: Chen Chia-yi, Taipei Times
Industrial design that utilizes sustainable materials is crucial to reducing natural resource extraction toward achieving economic sustainability, Shen said.
Dachun Soap brand supervisor Lee Kuo-jung (李國榮), whose company’s products are featured at the expo, said that Taiwan’s hotel industry each year creates several tonnes of soap only lightly used by guests.
In collaboration with hotels, the soapmaker collects, melts, sterilizes and remolds used soap into new bars, which it then donates to charities, including the Homeless Taiwan Association and the Ark Association, he said.
A spokesperson of toymaker MiToy, another business showcased at the event, said the group makes use of upcycled rice fragments from processing factories and food-grade plastic packaging to make products ranging from building blocks to pet chew toys.
Bentex Textile Industrial Co’s use of banana leaf fibers to make cloth products is also featured.
Writer and television host Hsieh Che-ching (謝哲青), the ministry’s circular economy ambassador, urged Taiwanese to help the growth of the circular economy by choosing sustainable goods and services.
Waste generated by the modern economy poses a huge danger to humanity, Hsieh said.
He said that he has seen discarded television screens in mountain heaps that threaten to overrun the Democratic Republis of the Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, and detritus from the world’s largest shipbreaking yard that ringed Chittagong in Bangladesh.
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