The Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) has promulgated five rules and regulations under the Indoor Air Quality Management Act (室內空氣品質管理法), which came into force on Friday as the nation became only the second country in Asia to legally regulate indoor air quality.
Initially put forward on Nov. 23 last year, the Indoor Air Quality Management Act was enacted on Friday, making Taiwan the second country after South Korea to set regulations for managing indoor air quality, the EPA said.
The act is an extension of the outdoor air quality management, based on the Air Pollution Control Act (空氣污染防制法), brought into public indoor spaces, the EPA said.
It said throughout a year of preparations, the administration organized several public hearings to gather opinion from various sectors on setting up five related regulations and rules. The EPA also held training programs for indoor air quality management personnel, who will play a decisive role in implementing indoor air quality maintenance and management plans.
Along with the enactment of the act, the EPA also promulgated the Indoor Air Quality Management Act Enforcement Rules, Indoor Air Quality Standards, Regulations Governing Dedicated Indoor Air Quality Management Personnel, Air Quality Analysis Management Regulations and the determination that describe violations to the act.
According to data provided on the EPA’s Web site, people in Taiwan spend about 80 to 90 percent of their time indoors. However, given the proliferation of air conditioning systems in homes and office spaces in the past two or three decades, the problem of “sick building syndrome” has occurred.
The EPA quoted the WHO definition of the syndrome as “an excess of work-related irritations of the skin and mucous membranes and other symptoms, including headache, fatigue and difficulty concentrating, reported by workers in office buildings,” and added that because Taiwan’s climate is often hot and humid — making it easy for mold or germs to grow — the routine cleaning of air conditioning systems is especially important.
In addition, the EPA said that indoor air quality is especially important for children, pregnant women, elderly people and people with chronic diseases, because they spend most of their time indoors. A WHO report also showed that children are more easily affected by poor indoor air quality than adults. Of the about 100,000 people who die of asthma each year globally, about 35 percent are children, according to the WHO report.
The EPA’s Air Quality Protection and Noise Control Bureau said although the act has already taken effect, the actual implementation would take place in stages. The first phase is set to focus on about 500 public places, including larger medical facilities, elderly care centers, central governmental agencies and transportation stations.
The air pollutants under regulation include carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and other volatile organic compounds, it added.
TENSIONS: The Chinese aircraft and vessels were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a joint air and sea military exercise, the Ministry of National Defense said A relatively large number of Chinese military aircraft and vessels were detected in Taiwan’s vicinity yesterday morning, apparently en route to a Chinese military exercise in the western Pacific, the Ministry of National Defense (MND) said. In a statement, the ministry said 36 Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) aircraft, including J-16 fighters and nuclear-capable H-6 bombers, crossed the median line of the Taiwan Strait or an extension of it, and were detected in the southern and southeastern parts of Taiwan’s air defense identification zone (ADIZ) from 5:20am to 9:30am yesterday. They were headed toward the western Pacific to take part in a
Honor guards are to stop performing changing of the guard ceremonies around a statue of Chiang Kai-shek (蔣介石) to avoid “worshiping authoritarianism,” the Ministry of Culture said yesterday. The fate of the bronze statue has long been the subject of fierce and polarizing debate in Taiwan, which has transformed from an autocracy under Chiang into one of Asia’s most vibrant democracies. The changing of the guard each hour at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall in Taipei is a major tourist attraction, but starting from 9am on Monday, the ceremony is to be moved outdoors to Democracy Boulevard, outside the eponymous blue-and-white memorial
The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) supports peaceful unification with China, and President William Lai (賴清德) is “a bit naive” for being a “practical worker for Taiwanese independence,” former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) said in an interview published yesterday. Asked about whether the KMT is on the same page as the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) and the Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) on the issue of Taiwanese independence or unification with China, Ma told the Malaysian Chinese-language newspaper Sin Chew Daily that they are not. While the KMT supports peaceful unification and is against unification by force, the DPP opposes unification as such and
CASES SLOWING: Although weekly COVID-19 cases are rising, the growth rate has been falling, from 90 percent to 30 percent, 14 percent and 6 percent, the CDC said COVID-19 hospitalizations last week rose 6 percent to 987, while deaths soared 55 percent to 99, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) said yesterday, adding that the recent wave of infections would likely peak this week. People aged 65 or older accounted for 79 percent of the hospitalizations and 90 percent of the deaths, the majority of whom have or had underlying health conditions, CDC data showed. The youngest hospitalized case last week was a six-month-old, who was born preterm and was unvaccinated, CDC physician Lin Yung-ching (林詠青) said. The infant had a fever, coughing and a runny nose early this month, but