Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) Minister Stephen Shen (沈世宏) yesterday said he will instruct local cleaning squads to accept and recycle oil bottles that still contain oil.
The recent adulterated oil scandals involving Flavor Full Food, which blended cottonseed oil into 24 of its products and flavoring agents to one of its peanut oil products, and Chang Chi Foodstuff Factory Co, which blended refined cottonseed oil with its Tatung-brand edible oil products, have caused many people to worry about the quality of oil products.
At a meeting of the legislature’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee yesterday, Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chao Tien-lin (趙天麟) said the public has questions about how to deal with problematic oil products, so his office made calls to several local cleaning squads to make enquiries.
However, it received a few different answers, Chao said.
“Up until Wednesday last week, 186,000 tonnes of Tatung-brand edible oil products have been recalled or returned to the company, but this does not include the products from Flavor Full,” he said. “So, our office did a random survey to ask how individuals can dispose of their oil products.”
He said the answers they received included “make an appointment with the squad, and it will send someone to retrieve it,” “bring the product to the agency for recycling,” “the agency only recycles the container” and “flush the oil down the toilet, or use a plastic bag to hold the oil, because the squad only recycles the container.”
Chao said the differing answers could cause confusion and urged the EPA to set up guidelines for the disposal of oil products.
There are biomass energy plants that can recycle the oil, and it can be used in other industries, such as to make soap or detergents, Shen said, adding that oil products should not be flushed down the toilet.
Taiwan is stepping up plans to create self-sufficient supply chains for combat drones and increase foreign orders from the US to counter China’s numerical superiority, a defense official said on Saturday. Commenting on condition of anonymity, the official said the nation’s armed forces are in agreement with US Admiral Samuel Paparo’s assessment that Taiwan’s military must be prepared to turn the nation’s waters into a “hellscape” for the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA). Paparo, the commander of the US Indo-Pacific Command, reiterated the concept during a Congressional hearing in Washington on Wednesday. He first coined the term in a security conference last
A magnitude 4.3 earthquake struck eastern Taiwan's Hualien County at 8:31am today, according to the Central Weather Administration (CWA). The epicenter of the temblor was located in Hualien County, about 70.3 kilometers south southwest of Hualien County Hall, at a depth of 23.2km, according to the administration. There were no immediate reports of damage resulting from the quake. The earthquake's intensity, which gauges the actual effect of a temblor, was highest in Taitung County, where it measured 3 on Taiwan's 7-tier intensity scale. The quake also measured an intensity of 2 in Hualien and Nantou counties, the CWA said.
The Overseas Community Affairs Council (OCAC) yesterday announced a fundraising campaign to support survivors of the magnitude 7.7 earthquake that struck Myanmar on March 28, with two prayer events scheduled in Taipei and Taichung later this week. “While initial rescue operations have concluded [in Myanmar], many survivors are now facing increasingly difficult living conditions,” OCAC Minister Hsu Chia-ching (徐佳青) told a news conference in Taipei. The fundraising campaign, which runs through May 31, is focused on supporting the reconstruction of damaged overseas compatriot schools, assisting students from Myanmar in Taiwan, and providing essential items, such as drinking water, food and medical supplies,
New Party Deputy Secretary-General You Chih-pin (游智彬) this morning went to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) to “turn himself in” after being notified that he had failed to provide proof of having renounced his Chinese household registration. He was one of more than 10,000 naturalized Taiwanese citizens from China who were informed by the NIA that their Taiwanese citizenship might be revoked if they fail to provide the proof in three months, people familiar with the matter said. You said he has proof that he had renounced his Chinese household registration and demanded the NIA provide proof that he still had Chinese
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