Nantou County commissioner candidate Wen Shih-cheng (?世政) yesterday proposed a “cocktail therapy” focused on proper waste sorting and cooperation across regions to solve the county’s landfill problem.
The Nantou County Government is promoting an incinerator construction project to counter the longstanding issue, but its site selection in the county’s tea-growing Mingjian Township (名間) has caused a local backlash, mainly due to concerns over potential contamination of produce.
Wen yesterday at a media conference proposed a solution.
Photo: Tu Chien-jung, Taipei Times
The county has a daily waste output of more than 600 tonnes, of which the 351 tonnes of recyclables and 16 tonnes of kitchen waste are within the county’s capability to process by itself, he said.
Wen said the remaining 259 tonnes of general waste can be fully disposed of through his five-layered “cocktail therapy” without relying on a new incinerator.
First, 75 tonnes could be reduced by improving the county’s recycling rate from the current 55 percent to 67 percent, which is in line with Taipei’s rate, he said.
Second, 26 tonnes of kitchen waste mixed with the general waste could be removed by proper waste sorting, Wen said.
Third, one of the two privately operated incinerators in the county has spare capacity of 20 percent that could be used to process an additional 60 tonnes of general waste, Wen said.
Fourth, the biomass energy center under construction in Nangang Industrial Zone (南崗工業區) could process all the county’s kitchen waste once it is built, he said.
Fifth, the remaining 98 tonnes could be resolved via a one-to-one exchange approach, Wen said.
The county could process up to 133 tonnes of kitchen waste from other areas if the biomass energy center’s capacity could be expanded to 175 tonnes from 100, he said, adding that the ministry has considered it feasible.
That means, aside from its own 42 tonnes of leftovers, the county could further process 133 tonnes of external kitchen waste in exchange for other places handling 133 tonnes of its general waste, Wen said.
The solution would not only fully eliminate the county’s landfill issue, but create more capacity for addressing kitchen waste from other regions, he said.
Environmental Management Administration official Tsai Peng-pei (蔡蓬培) said Wen’s proposal aligns with the central authorities’ principle of diversified waste treatment, including boosting recycling, source reduction and public-private cooperation.
The real challenge lies in execution and would require the county government to communicate with each party involved, he said.
The ministry used to subsidize the cost of transporting the county’s waste to other areas at more than NT$50 million (US$1.58 million) per year on average under a subsidy scheme that ended last year after more than a decade.
The incinerator construction project proposed by the county is estimated to cost billions of New Taiwan dollars.
China has reserved offshore airspace in the Yellow Sea and East China Sea from March 27 to May 6, issuing alerts usually used to warn of military exercises, although no such exercises have been announced, the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reported yesterday. Reserving such a large area for 40 days without explanation is an “unusual step,” as military exercises normally only last a few days, the paper said. These alerts, known as Notice to Air Missions (Notams), “are intended to inform pilots and aviation authorities of temporary airspace hazards or restrictions,” the article said. The airspace reserved in the alert is
NAMING SPAT: The foreign ministry called on Denmark to propose an acceptable solution to the erroneous nationality used for Taiwanese on residence permits Taiwan has revoked some privileges for Danish diplomatic staff over a Danish permit that lists “Taiwan” as “China,” Eric Huang (黃鈞耀), head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of European Affairs, told a news conference in Taipei yesterday. Reporters asked Huang whether the Danish government had responded to the ministry’s request that it correct the nationality on Danish residence permits of Taiwanese, which has been listed as “China” since 2024. Taiwan’s representative office in Denmark continues to communicate with the Danish government, and the ministry has revoked some privileges previously granted to Danish representatives in Taiwan and would continue to review
More than 6,000 Taiwanese students have participated in exchange programs in China over the past two years, despite the Mainland Affairs Council’s (MAC) “orange light” travel advisory, government records showed. The MAC’s publicly available registry showed that Taiwanese college and university students who went on exchange programs across the Strait numbered 3,592 and 2,966 people respectively. The National Immigration Agency data revealed that 2,296 and 2,551 Chinese students visited Taiwan for study in the same two years. A review of the Web sites of publicly-run universities and colleges showed that Taiwanese higher education institutions continued to recruit students for Chinese educational programs without
The first bluefin tuna of the season, brought to shore in Pingtung County and weighing 190kg, was yesterday auctioned for NT$10,600 (US$333.5) per kilogram, setting a record high for the local market. The auction was held at the fish market in Donggang Fishing Harbor, where the Siaoliouciou Island-registered fishing vessel Fu Yu Ching No. 2 delivered the “Pingtung First Tuna” it had caught for bidding. Bidding was intense, and the tuna was ultimately jointly purchased by a local restaurant and a local company for NT$10,600 per kilogram — NT$300 ,more than last year — for a total of NT$2.014 million. The 67-year-old skipper
RSS