Environmental groups on Wednesday urged the Ministry of Environment to increase penalties for illegal dumping, and implement incentives for waste reduction and recycling in its draft amendments to waste management laws.
The ministry on Wednesday held a meeting to discuss draft amendments to the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法) and the Resource Recycling Act (資源回收再利用法).
Tonnes of waste illegally dumped nationwide, including those piled up under the guise of reuse, incurred billions of waste disposal costs over the past few years, but the penalties for illegal dumping proposed in the draft amendments remain disproportionately low, Government Watch Alliance chief executive officer Hsu Hsin-hsin (許心欣) said.
Photo: screen grab from YouTube
For example, more than 1,000 tonnes of illegal dumping at a site near Kaohsiung’s Matou Mountain (馬頭山) required more than NT$100 million (US$3.4 million) of disposal fees, but the Kaohsiung Environmental Protection Bureau imposed penalties of only NT$80,000, alliance convenor Chen Jiau-hua (陳椒華) said.
Tighter regulation of so-called “recyclable side products,” such as fiber-reinforced plastic powders or high-tech sludge, is also required, Taiwan Watch Institute secretary-general Herlin Hsieh (謝和霖) said.
Such waste is often illegally dumped at soil resource stacking sites or near rivers or farmland under the guise of reuse and has caused environmental contaminations, he said, adding that both the upper and lower limits of monetary penalties for such illegal dumping must be raised to deter unscrupulous waste management operators.
Changhua Environmental Protection Union researcher Lin Cheng-han (林政翰) said that illegal dumping has become an offense with low risk, extremely low costs and high profit margins in Taiwan due to disproportionately light punishments and difficulties collecting evidence.
It is difficult to give evidence on how an incident of illegal dumping has caused environmental pollution that would harm people’s health, he said.
The bill should increase the minimum basic punishment for illegal dumping to a three-year jail term, Lin said, adding that illegal dumping on farmland or environmentally sensitive areas should be punishable by a jail term of up to 10 years.
Meanwhile, the Taiwan RE-THINK Environmental Education Association yesterday said that energy drink bottles have become the third-most common garbage found on beaches behind bottles containing water or tea.
The association analyzed 8,249 pieces of garbage collected from 59 beaches across Taiwan from April last year to April.
Data showed that plastic bottles remained as the most common garbage material at 67.4 percent, or 5,677 pieces, followed by glass bottles at 14.8 percent, and tin or aluminum cans at 5.4 percent, it said.
In terms of product type, 2,356 pieces were water bottles, accounting for the most at 28 percent, followed by tea bottles at 21.7 percent, or 1,826 pieces, and energy drink bottles at 15.6 percent, or 1,313 pieces, the association said.
Energy drinks are popular with anglers and tourists as the bottles are usually small and convenient to carry during outdoor activities, it said.
However, most energy drink bottles are glass, which are more difficult to recycle or decompose, and they are often left on beaches for years, the association said, urging people to fulfill their responsibility to recycle, it added.
People discarding litter at beaches can be fined NT$1,200 to NT$6,000, the association said.
A magnitude 6.1 earthquake struck off the coast of Yilan County at 8:39pm tonight, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, with no immediate reports of damage or injuries. The epicenter was 38.7km east-northeast of Yilan County Hall at a focal depth of 98.3km, the CWA’s Seismological Center said. The quake’s maximum intensity, which gauges the actual physical effect of a seismic event, was a level 4 on Taiwan’s 7-tier intensity scale, the center said. That intensity level was recorded in Yilan County’s Nanao Township (南澳), Hsinchu County’s Guansi Township (關西), Nantou County’s Hehuanshan (合歡山) and Hualien County’s Yanliao (鹽寮). An intensity of 3 was
Instead of focusing solely on the threat of a full-scale military invasion, the US and its allies must prepare for a potential Chinese “quarantine” of Taiwan enforced through customs inspections, Stanford University Hoover fellow Eyck Freymann said in a Foreign Affairs article published on Wednesday. China could use various “gray zone” tactics in “reconfiguring the regional and ultimately the global economic order without a war,” said Freymann, who is also a nonresident research fellow at the US Naval War College. China might seize control of Taiwan’s links to the outside world by requiring all flights and ships entering or leaving Taiwan
The next minimum wage hike is expected to exceed NT$30,000, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday during an award ceremony honoring “model workers,” including migrant workers, at the Presidential Office ahead of Workers’ Day today. Lai said he wished to thank the awardees on behalf of the nation and extend his most sincere respect for their hard work, on which Taiwan’s prosperity has been built. Lai specifically thanked 10 migrant workers selected for the award, saying that although they left their home countries to further their own goals, their efforts have benefited Taiwan as well. The nation’s industrial sector and small businesses lay
Quarantine awareness posters at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport have gone viral for their use of wordplay. Issued by the airport branch of the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Agency, the posters feature sniffer dogs making a range of facial expressions, paired with advisory messages built around homophones. “We update the messages for holidays and campaign needs, periodically refreshing materials to attract people’s attention,” quarantine officials said. “The aim is to use the dogs’ appeal to draw focus to quarantine regulations.” A Japanese traveler visiting Taiwan has posted a photo on X of a poster showing a quarantine dog with a
RSS