The Ministry of Environment yesterday announced more stringent air pollution control zone criteria, meaning that five cities and counties would no longer meet the standard.
Based on the higher standards, New Taipei City, Taichung and the counties of Changhua, Nantou and Chiayi are to be reclassified from “meeting the standard” to “non-compliant” for PM10, the ministry said.
It is part of the ministry’s proposed amendments to the Air Quality Standards first announced in September.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
PM10 refers to inhalable particulate matter 10 micrometers or less in diameter found in dust and smoke.
According to the new guidelines, all air quality monitoring stations within a municipality must meet the threshold for particulate matter, rather than the previous system of averaging the results from all stations for a given area.
The stricter criteria means that the five municipalities expand the list of Class 3 zones to 11.
This does not indicate a decrease in air quality for these areas, but reflects the higher standards being used, the ministry said.
On the contrary, the five municipalities have seen decreases in PM10 concentrations in line with the rest of the country since 2016, including a 35 percent reduction for New Taipei City, 36 percent for Taichung, 29 percent for Changhua County, 40 percent for Nantou County and 42 percent for Chiayi County, the ministry said.
For PM2.5, 14 counties and cities remain Class 3 control zones, the ministry said.
For ozone, Yilan, Hualien and Taitung counties are Class 2 control zones, while all other municipalities are Class 3.
The control zone classification allows for local governments to take more proactive measures to control pollution by collecting fees and tightening control of emissions from sources such as construction and road dust, the ministry said.
The higher fees then incentivize businesses to invest in lower-emission or pollution prevention technology, causing air quality to improve further, it added.
Taiwanese paleontologists have discovered fossil evidence that pythons up to 4m long inhabited Taiwan during the Pleistocene epoch, reporting their findings in the international scientific journal Historical Biology. National Taiwan University (NTU) Institute of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology associate professor Tsai Cheng-hsiu (蔡政修) led the team that discovered the largest snake fossil ever found in Taiwan. The single trunk vertebra was discovered in Tainan at the Chiting Formation, dated to between 400,000 and 800,000 years ago in the Middle Pleistocene, the paper said. The area also produced Taiwan’s first avian fossil, as well as crocodile, mammoth, saber-toothed cat and rhinoceros fossils, it said. Discoveries
WATCH FOR HITCHHIKERS: The CDC warned those returning home from Japan to be alert for any contagious diseases that might have come back with them People who have returned from Japan following the World Baseball Classic (WBC) games during the weekend are recommended to watch for symptoms of infectious gastroenteritis, flu and measles for two weeks, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said. Flu viruses remain the most common respiratory pathogen in Taiwan in the past four weeks and the influenza B virus accounted for 55.7 percent of the tested cases, exceeding the percentage of influenza A (H3N2) infections and becoming the local dominant strain, CDC Epidemic Intelligence Center Deputy Director Lee Chia-lin (李佳琳) said at a news conference on Tuesday. There were 82,187 hospital visits for
Alumni from Japan’s Kyoto Tachibana Senior High School marching band, widely known as the “Orange Devils,” staged a flash mob performance at the Grand Hotel in Taipei yesterday to thank Taiwan for its support after the Great East Japan Earthquake. The show, performed on the earthquake’s 15th anniversary, drew more than 100 spectators, some of whom arrived two hours before the show to secure a good viewing spot. The 26-member group played selections from “High School Musical,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and their signature piece “Sing Sing Sing” and shouted “I love
INCREASED CAPACITY: The flights on Mondays, Wednesdays, Fridays and Sundays would leave Singapore in the morning and Taipei in the afternoon Singapore Airlines is adding four supplementary flights to Taipei per week until May to meet increased tourist and business travel demand, the carrier said on Friday. The addition would raise the number of weekly flights it operates to Taipei to 18, Singapore Airlines Taiwan general manager Timothy Ouyang (歐陽漢源) said. The airline has recorded a steady rise in tourist and business travel to and from Taipei, and aims to provide more flexible travel arrangements for passengers, said Ouyang, who assumed the post in July last year. From now until Saturday next week, four additional flights would depart from Singapore on Monday, Wednesday, Friday
RSS