About 9 billion cigarette butts are improperly discarded every year, the Ministry of Environment said yesterday as it mobilized 50,000 people nationwide to clean streets.
The ministry yesterday held an environmental clean-up event named “Team Planet” in support of Earth Day on Tuesday.
The event galvanized nearly 50,000 people from enterprises, civic groups and local environmental bureaus across the nation’s 22 administrative areas into taking part in picking up litter on streets, as well as draining water out of containers to prevent the spread of dengue fever.
Photo: CNA
Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭?明) attended the event in Taipei’s Ximending (西門町) shopping area, saying that maintaining clean streets, keeping cigarette butts of the ground, and preventing dengue fever are the three goals for this year to echo Earth Day.
Streets must be kept clean, as even beautiful places would lose half of their charm if they are defiled with rubbish, he said.
Public environments are mostly kept clean thanks to the efforts of sanitation workers and volunteers, Peng said, adding that more Taiwanese should be aware that littering is illegal.
“Although the number of smokers is decreasing in Taiwan, there are still about 36 billion cigarettes sold every year,” he said.
Improperly discarded cigarette butts could fall into gutters and flow into the ocean, causing marine microbeads to increase, Peng said, calling on smokers to take cigarette butts home for proper disposal.
Taipei Department of Environmental Protection Director Shyu Shyh-shiun (徐世?) also said that discarding cigarette butts into gutters would result in environmental pollution, although some smokers argue that it would be less likely to cause fire.
The Taipei City Government has set up 1,800 cigarette snuffers across the city, more than double the 650 asked for by the ministry, he said.
About 9 billion, or 25 percent, of the 36 billion cigarettes sold every year were improperly discarded, Environmental Management Administration Director-General Yen Hsu-ming (顏旭明) said.
The government would clamp down on cigarette littering at popular smoking spots such as convenience stores or stir-fry restaurants, he said.
Regarding dengue control, data from the Centers for Disease Control has shown that the global dengue fever pandemic peaked last year.
Peng said that global warming has prolonged summers and might lead to an outbreak of the dengue fever epidemic earlier this year.
Dengue fever is no longer limited to southern Taiwan and has infected some people in the north, while other countries such as Japan and South Korea are also carefully preparing for dengue control, he said.
To prevent dengue fever, it is fundamental to frequently check if containers are collecting water, drain the water, dump waste containers, and scrub mosquito eggs from containers, Peng said, calling on people to take the four actions eliminate mosquito habitats around their residence.
The Taipei Summer Festival is to begin tomorrow at Dadaocheng Wharf (大稻埕), featuring four themed firework shows and five live music performances throughout the month, the Taipei Department of Information and Tourism said today. The festival in the city’s Datong District (大同) is to run until Aug. 30, holding firework displays on Wednesdays and the final Saturday of the event. The first show is scheduled for tomorrow, followed by Aug. 13, 20 and 30. To celebrate the 30th anniversary of Disney Pixar's movie Toy Story, the festival has partnered with Walt Disney Co (Taiwan) to host a special themed area on
Aftershocks from a magnitude 6.2 earthquake that struck off Yilan County at 3:45pm yesterday could reach a magnitude of 5 to 5.5, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Seismological Center technical officer Chiu Chun-ta (邱俊達) told a news conference that the epicenter of the temblor was more than 100km from Taiwan. Although predicted to measure between magnitude 5 and 5.5, the aftershocks would reach an intensity of 1 on Taiwan’s 7-tier scale, which gauges the actual effect of an earthquake, he said. The earthquake lasted longer in Taipei because the city is in a basin, he said. The quake’s epicenter was about 128.9km east-southeast
BE CAREFUL: The virus rarely causes severe illness or death, but newborns, older people and those with medical conditions are at risk of more severe illness As more than 7,000 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported in China’s Guangdong Province this year, including 2,892 new cases last week, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) yesterday said it is monitoring the situation and considering raising the travel notice level, which might be announced today. The CDC issued a level 1 travel notice, or “watch,” for Guangdong Province on July 22, citing an outbreak in Foshan, a manufacturing hub in the south of the province, that was reported early last month. Between July 27 and Saturday, the province reported 2,892 new cases of chikungunya, reaching a total of 7,716
STAY VIGILANT: People should reduce the risk of chronic liver inflammation by avoiding excessive alcohol consumption, smoking and eating pickled foods, the physician said A doctor last week urged people to look for five key warning signs of acute liver failure after popular producer-turned-entertainer Shen Yu-lin (沈玉琳) was reportedly admitted to an intensive care unit for fulminant hepatitis. Fulminant hepatitis is the rapid and massive death of liver cells, impairing the organ’s detoxification, metabolic, protein synthesis and bile production functions, which if left untreated has a mortality rate as high as 80 percent, according to the Web site of Advancing Clinical Treatment of Liver Disease, an international organization focused on liver disease prevention and treatment. People with hepatitis B or C are at higher risk of
RSS