The average air quality in Taiwan has become the worst among the four “East Asian Tigers” — Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea — and even worse than some cities in China, the Taiwan Healthy Air Action Alliance and legislators said yesterday.
Alliance founder and Changhua Christian Hospital gynecologist Yeh Guang-peng (葉光芃) said he and the Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs had analyzed air quality reports published by the WHO, and discovered that the annual average of PM10 (fine particles in the air smaller than 10 micrometers in size) concentration in Taiwan was as high as 54 micrograms per cubic meter.
He said the annual average PM10 level of Taiwan was about two times that of Austria and Singapore, the highest among the East Asian Tigers and even higher than some cities in Southeast Asia and China.
Photo: Wang Yi-sung, Taipei Times
Furthermore, Yeh said the PM10 annual average in Taipei — 47.1 micrograms per cubic meter, ranked only 1,089 among 1,600 cities around the world, showing that the nation’s air quality still has much room for improvement.
Comparing that level with a few cities in China, he said the PM10 levels in Shenzhen, Xiamen and Quanzhou were better than those in Chiayi and Greater Kaohsiung; and the air quality in Shanghai was better than Greater Kaohsiung’s Fongshan District (鳳山) and Greater Tainan’s Sinying District (新營).
The alliance said while the environmental and health agencies in other countries are working together to tackle air pollution problems, the Ministry of Health and Welfare seemed to be too passive in dealing with the health risks from serious air pollution.
Lin Chen-su (林真夙), a section chief at the ministry’s Health Promotion Administration, said the agency would work to improve health education to inform the public about air pollution and related health risks, and also to suggest prevention measures.
The Environmental Protection Administration said that the average PM10 levels in the nation have already decreased greatly over the past years, but sometimes high PM10 levels result from certain geographical and climate conditions, such as dust near river banks in central and southern Taiwan, but that it will continue to make efforts to reduce air pollution.
Changhua Medical Alliance for Public Affairs consultant Yang Joe-ming (楊澤民) said children, elderly people and people suffering from asthma or cardiovascular disease are more sensitive to air pollutants and should wear face masks when commuting to reduce harmful exposure.
Civil society groups yesterday protested outside the Legislative Yuan, decrying Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) efforts to pass three major bills that they said would seriously harm Taiwan’s democracy, and called to oust KMT caucus whip Fu Kun-chi (傅?萁). It was the second night of the three-day “Bluebird wintertime action” protests in Taipei, with organizers announcing that 8,000 people attended. Organized by Taiwan Citizen Front, the Economic Democracy Union (EDU) and a coalition of civil groups, about 6,000 people began a demonstration in front of KMT party headquarters in Taipei on Wednesday, organizers said. For the third day, the organizers asked people to assemble
POOR IMPLEMENTATION: Teachers welcomed the suspension, saying that the scheme disrupted school schedules, quality of learning and the milk market A policy to offer free milk to all school-age children nationwide is to be suspended next year due to multiple problems arising from implementation of the policy, the Executive Yuan announced yesterday. The policy was designed to increase the calcium intake of school-age children in Taiwan by drinking milk, as more than 80 percent drink less than 240ml per day. The recommended amount is 480ml. It was also implemented to help Taiwanese dairy farmers counter competition from fresh milk produced in New Zealand, which is to be imported to Taiwan tariff-free next year when the Agreement Between New Zealand and
A woman who allegedly spiked the food and drinks of an Australian man with rat poison, leaving him in intensive care, has been charged with attempted murder, the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said yesterday. The woman, identified by her surname Yang (楊), is accused of repeatedly poisoning Alex Shorey over the course of several months last year to prevent the Australian man from leaving Taiwan, prosecutors said in a statement. Shorey was evacuated back to Australia on May 3 last year after being admitted to intensive care in Taiwan. According to prosecutors, Yang put bromadiolone, a rodenticide that prevents blood from
A Japanese space rocket carrying a Taiwanese satellite blasted off yesterday, but was later seen spiraling downward in the distance as the company said the launch attempt had failed. It was the second attempt by the Japanese start-up Space One to become the country’s first private firm to put a satellite into orbit, after its first try in March ended in a mid-air explosion. This time, its solid-fuel Kairos rocket had been carrying five satellites, including one from the Taiwan Space Agency and others designed by Japanese students and corporate ventures. Spectators gathered near the company’s coastal Spaceport Kii launch pad in Japan’s
RSS