The Ministry of Education (MOE) is stepping up efforts to integrate campus waste treatment with agrifood education and other concepts as the nation looks to ban the use of food scraps as pig feed next year as part of the government’s preventive measures against African swine fever.
Multiple schools have been using the process of handling leftover food as an educational opportunity, such as the Taipei City Ching Chiang Elementary School’s Vermiponics System project, K-12 Administration official Chiu Chiu-chan (邱秋蟬) said.
The school deposits leftovers from school lunches into boxes, feeding the earthworms inside, whose feces fertilize the vegetation planted in the boxes, Chiu said.
Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Education
By observing the process, the students gain a deeper understanding of food waste recycling, she said.
Nanlong Junior High School in Kaohsiung also encourages its students to be involved in projects involving leftovers.
This allows students to learn more about agriculture and food, the environment and science in general, and would also teach them to refrain from being wasteful, Chiu said.
Taitung County’s Fongyuan Elementary School has also been raising black soldier flies to process school food scraps.
The school said the process allows students to reflect on their food choices and how they impact sustainability, adding that the process also teaches them to cherish food and learn about recycling.
Taichung’s Huiwen High School, through careful separation and preservation, and in collaboration with organizations, turns food leftovers into food for disadvantaged families and homeless people, Chiu said.
The project allows the school to recycle and reuse about 70 percent of its leftovers, helping prevent waste while doing its part for the community, Chiu said.
The ministry would continue to share with schools how to prevent food waste, encouraging them not to buy too many supplies, to set up their purchases around a weekly schedule, to invest in better storage methods, and to share excess food with other organizations and groups, Chiu said.
The ministry said it would also praise and reward schools that have made exceptional efforts to reduce food waste and cultivate habits of cherishing food, Chiu said, adding that this would help increase school lunch quality and ensure that schools are implementing measures to help achieve a sustainable environment in line with government policies.
The Grand Hotel Taipei on Saturday confirmed that its information system had been illegally accessed and expressed its deepest apologies for the concern it has caused its customers, adding that the issue is being investigated by the Ministry of Justice Investigation Bureau. The hotel said that on Tuesday last week, it had discovered an external illegal intrusion into its information system. An initial digital forensic investigation confirmed that parts of the system had been accessed, it said, adding that the possibility that some customer data were stolen and leaked could not be ruled out. The actual scope and content of the affected data
DO THEY BITE IT? Cats have better memories than people might think, but their motivation is based entirely around the chance of getting fed Cats can remember the identity of the people who fed them the day before, Taipei-based veterinarians said on Friday, debunking a popular myth that cats have a short memory. If a stray does not recognize the person who fed them the previous day, it is likely because they are not carrying food and the cat has no reason to recognize them, said Wu Chou Animal Hospital head Chen Chen-huan (陳震寰). “When cats come to a human bearing food, it is coming for the food, not the person,” he said. “The food is the key.” Since the cat’s attention is on the food, it
‘LIKE-MINDED PARTNER’: Tako van Popta said it would be inappropriate to delay signing the deal with Taiwan because of China, adding he would promote the issue Canadian senators have stressed Taiwan’s importance for international trade and expressed enthusiasm for ensuring the Taiwan-Canada trade cooperation framework agreement is implemented this year. Representative to Canada Harry Tseng (曾厚仁) in an interview with the Central News Agency (CNA) said he was increasingly uneasy about Ottawa’s delays in signing the agreement, especially as Ottawa has warmed toward Beijing. There are “no negotiations left. Not only [is it] initialed, we have three versions of the text ready: English, French and Mandarin,” Tseng said. “That tells you how close we are to the final signature.” Tseng said that he hoped Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney
President William Lai (賴清德) yesterday bestowed one of Taiwan’s highest honors on Saint Vincent and the Grenadines (SVG) Ambassador Andrea Clare Bowman in recognition of her contributions to bilateral ties. “By conferring the Order of Brilliant Star with Grand Cordon on Ambassador Bowman today, I want to sincerely thank her, on behalf of the Taiwanese people, for her outstanding contribution to deepening diplomatic ties between Taiwan and SVG,” Lai said at a ceremony held at the Presidential Office in Taipei. He noted that Bowman became SVG’s first ambassador to Taiwan in 2019 and
RSS