The Ministry of Environment is to propose a management plan for large-scale post-disaster temporary waste storage by the end of February, Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) said today.
The move follows a fire that broke out at the Wushulin temporary waste storage site in Tainan’s Houbi District (後壁) on Nov. 21.
The Tainan Fire Bureau is investigating the cause of the fire and penalties would be imposed if the city’s Environmental Protection Bureau is found to have been at fault due to improper planning, Peng said.
Photo: Yang Chin-cheng, Taipei Times
The Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee today invited Peng and other agencies to report on waste management issues.
Taiwan currently has 33 exposed “trash mountains,” he said.
Since the end of last year, 53 exposed garbage sites were identified and 20 have since been eliminated, he added.
As of the end of last month, Taiwan had 608,000 tonnes of waste exposed in garbage pileups, the ministry said.
About 444,000 tonnes, or 73 percent of the total volume of those “trash mountains,” are in Hsinchu County, Tainan and Nantou County, it said.
However, proper waste management has been achieved in Pingtung County and Chiayi City, it added.
The ministry originally aimed to reduce exposed garbage to 410,000 tonnes by the end of the year, although typhoon-related waste and food waste have been sent to incinerators in place of the exposed garbage and has overwhelmed capacity, Peng said.
The goal remains to ensure proper treatment of all exposed waste nationwide by the end of next year, he said.
The ministry also said it is studying Japan’s approach to managing large-scale post-disaster temporary waste storage, finding that differences in stacking scale, height and density of waste processing in Japan help prevent major fires.
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