Taipei is to ban free, disposable chopsticks from 24-hour shops and supermarkets, an official said yesterday.
The Taipei City Government said that starting later this month, several 24-hour convenience shop and supermarket chains will stop giving away disposable chopsticks with packed food, lunch boxes and instant noodles. It hasn’t decided on the exact date yet when the measure will take effect.
Participants in the campaign are 7-Eleven, Family Mart, Circle K and Hi-Life 24-hour shop chains as well as supermarket chains Wellcome, Matsusei and Pxmart.
“These shops and supermarkets are taking the lead. We hope other shops, restaurants and roadside food stalls can follow suit and stop using disposable chopsticks,” said Su Fen-hui, from the city government’s environmental protection bureau.
According to the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Taiwan residents use 5 to 6 billion pairs of disposable wooden or bamboo chopsticks every year, creating five tonnes of garbage.
EPA has urged shops and supermarkets to stop giving away disposable chopsticks and called on restaurants to stop using them. People are also urged to carry “environmentally friendly” foldable chopsticks as they can be re-used.
Meanwhile, in other news, the Executive Yuan released yesterday its Taiwan sustainable development indicators compiled by the National Council for Sustainable Development Network. which showed that Taiwan’s living environment degenerated last year, despite improvements in many sectors, including reservoir quality and waste recycling.
Compared with the similar indicators applied to illustrate the country’s environmental sustainability in 2006, the report indicates that 15 of 41 indicators moved away from sustainability this year.
They include the carbon dioxide emission amount, water resources, garbage output per capita, the volume of public pollution petitions under government management and the pesticide consumption percentage of agricultural output in a year.
Other indicators, such as the death rate from cancer, the percentage of the central government’s general budget for environmental protection and biological preservation, as well as urban electricity consumption per capita, also show an increasing distance from the goal of sustainable development, the report said.
As improvements in environmental pollution control were offset by more serious ecological degradation, the report concluded that Taiwan had moved away from sustainable development.
The indicators were first produced in 2003 to serve as reference for environmental sustainability and seek improvement to the environment.
Taiwan is to receive the first batch of Lockheed Martin F-16 Block 70 jets from the US late this month, a defense official said yesterday, after a year-long delay due to a logjam in US arms deliveries. Completing the NT$247.2 billion (US$7.69 billion) arms deal for 66 jets would make Taiwan the third nation in the world to receive factory-fresh advanced fighter jets of the same make and model, following Bahrain and Slovakia, the official said on condition of anonymity. F-16 Block 70/72 are newly manufactured F-16 jets built by Lockheed Martin to the standards of the F-16V upgrade package. Republic of China
Taiwan-Japan Travel Passes are available for use on public transit networks in the two countries, Taoyuan Metro Corp said yesterday, adding that discounts of up to 7 percent are available. Taoyuan Metro, the Taipei MRT and Japan’s Keisei Electric Railway teamed up to develop the pass. Taoyuan Metro operates the Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport MRT Line, while Keisei Electric Railway offers express services between Tokyo’s Narita Airport, and the Keisei Ueno and Nippori stations in the Japanese capital, as well as between Narita and Haneda airports. The basic package comprises one one-way ticket on the Taoyuan MRT Line and one Skyliner ticket on
EVERYONE’S ISSUE: Kim said that during a visit to Taiwan, she asked what would happen if China attacked, and was told that the global economy would shut down Taiwan is critical to the global economy, and its defense is a “here and now” issue, US Representative Young Kim said during a roundtable talk on Taiwan-US relations on Friday. Kim, who serves on the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee, held a roundtable talk titled “Global Ties, Local Impact: Why Taiwan Matters for California,” at Santiago Canyon College in Orange County, California. “Despite its small size and long distance from us, Taiwan’s cultural and economic importance is felt across our communities,” Kim said during her opening remarks. Stanford University researcher and lecturer Lanhee Chen (陳仁宜), lawyer Lin Ching-chi
A pro-Russia hacker group has launched a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack on the Taiwanese government in retaliation for President William Lai’s (賴清德) comments suggesting that China should have a territorial dispute with Russia, an information security company said today. The hacker group, NoName057, recently launched an HTTPs flood attack called “DDoSia” targeting Taiwanese government and financial units, Radware told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). Local tax bureaus in New Taipei City, Keelung, Hsinchu and Taoyuan were mentioned by the hackers. Only the Hsinchu Local Tax Bureau site appeared to be down earlier in the day, but was back