A test report on dust collected from 13 homes and two offices found 36 types of hazardous chemicals, half of which are not regulated by the law, Greenpeace Taiwan said yesterday.
The tests were conducted on dust collected by vacuum cleaners from homes and offices in Taipei, New Taipei City (新北市), Greater Taichung, Greater Kaohsiung, Greater Tainan and Hualien from November last year to January this year.
Rose Lai (賴倩如), Greenpeace Taiwan’s prevention campaign director, said the test results showed that many homes have been invaded by high concentrations of hazardous chemicals, and people may inhale them or eat and drink food contaminated by the dust, causing harm to the liver, kidneys, endocrine system or reproductive system.
The report found 36 types of hazardous chemicals, including eights types of phthalates (or plasticizers). For example, the average level of di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) found in the dust tested was 736 parts per million (ppm) — four times the average found in England.
“Current regulations ban the use of some plasticizers in toys for children under 14 years old, but they are used in other products at home that children are exposed to,” Lai said.
The average level of short-chain chlorinated paraffins (SCCPs) found in the tests was 29.8ppm, higher than the average levels found in China or England, and about 15 times higher than that of Belgium.
There are about 79,000 types of chemicals used on various products in Taiwan that may be found in most homes, such as food packaging, toys, clothes and furniture. However, the Toxic Chemical Substances Control Act (毒性化學物質管理法) only regulates the use of 302 types of chemicals, the report said.
“The scope of toxic chemical management under the current law is not enough to provide full-scale protection, so people may unknowingly be exposed to toxic chemicals that can damage their health over the long term,” Lai said. “Consumers may feel helpless because they cannot avoid these products. We can only suggest that they pay more attention to the [product] ingredients when making a purchase.”
Greenpeace said it urged the Environmental Protection Administration last month to improve management of toxic chemicals by including alkylphenols, phthalates, brominated flame retardants (BFRs), SCCPs and perfluorinated compounds (PFCs) in its regulations and to set a schedule for their phasing out, but it has yet to receive a response.
Police have issued warnings against traveling to Cambodia or Thailand when others have paid for the travel fare in light of increasing cases of teenagers, middle-aged and elderly people being tricked into traveling to these countries and then being held for ransom. Recounting their ordeal, one victim on Monday said she was asked by a friend to visit Thailand and help set up a bank account there, for which they would be paid NT$70,000 to NT$100,000 (US$2,136 to US$3,051). The victim said she had not found it strange that her friend was not coming along on the trip, adding that when she
TRAGEDY: An expert said that the incident was uncommon as the chance of a ground crew member being sucked into an IDF engine was ‘minuscule’ A master sergeant yesterday morning died after she was sucked into an engine during a routine inspection of a fighter jet at an air base in Taichung, the Air Force Command Headquarters said. The officer, surnamed Hu (胡), was conducting final landing checks at Ching Chuan Kang (清泉崗) Air Base when she was pulled into the jet’s engine for unknown reasons, the air force said in a news release. She was transported to a hospital for emergency treatment, but could not be revived, it said. The air force expressed its deepest sympathies over the incident, and vowed to work with authorities as they
A tourist who was struck and injured by a train in a scenic area of New Taipei City’s Pingsi District (平溪) on Monday might be fined for trespassing on the tracks, the Railway Police Bureau said yesterday. The New Taipei City Fire Department said it received a call at 4:37pm on Monday about an incident in Shifen (十分), a tourist destination on the Pingsi Railway Line. After arriving on the scene, paramedics treated a woman in her 30s for a 3cm to 5cm laceration on her head, the department said. She was taken to a hospital in Keelung, it said. Surveillance footage from a
INFRASTRUCTURE: Work on the second segment, from Kaohsiung to Pingtung, is expected to begin in 2028 and be completed by 2039, the railway bureau said Planned high-speed rail (HSR) extensions would blanket Taiwan proper in four 90-minute commute blocs to facilitate regional economic and livelihood integration, Railway Bureau Deputy Director-General Yang Cheng-chun (楊正君) said in an interview published yesterday. A project to extend the high-speed rail from Zuoying Station in Kaohsiung to Pingtung County’s Lioukuaicuo Township (六塊厝) is the first part of the bureau’s greater plan to expand rail coverage, he told the Liberty Times (sister paper of the Taipei Times). The bureau’s long-term plan is to build a loop to circle Taiwan proper that would consist of four sections running from Taipei to Hualien, Hualien to
RSS