A Nantou County couple on Saturday took their wedding photographs in front of a “garbage mountain” to raise awareness of waste management problems in the mountainous central county.
The couple posed in wedding attire in front of the temporary trash storage site operated by sanitation services in Puli Township (埔里), one of several locations in the county where garbage has been piling up in the past few years due to a lack of an incinerator and insufficient landfill space.
The bride-to-be, surnamed Hsueh (薛), wrote on Facebook that the photographer thought she was joking when she proposed taking the photos in front of the garbage heap.
Photo courtesy of Puli Township Sanitation crew
Their driver said it was the first time he had heard such a request in his more than 30 years of shuttling couples to wedding shoots, she wrote.
Despite the “strong odor” at the trash dump, Hsueh said she hoped the photos would bring attention to the issue of excess waste, and would encourage people to create less garbage and help keep Taiwan beautiful.
Nantou Environmental Protection Bureau Director Lee Yi-shu (李易書) yesterday said that multiple townships in Nantou do not have landfills or permanent facilities for garbage.
While the bureau has arranged for some of the trash to be moved to other regions, it would only account for a small portion of the waste generated in Nantou each day, Lee said.
To truly resolve the issue and get its “garbage mountain” removed, Puli Township needs to designate space for a permanent landfill, he said.
Earlier this year, the bureau said that about 240,000 tonnes of garbage had piled up at temporary storage sites around the county, with the largest by volume in Caotun Township (草屯).
With a population of 477,000, Nantou produces about 2.62 million tonnes of garbage each day, it said.
Hong Kong singer Andy Lau’s (劉德華) concert in Taipei tonight has been cancelled due to Typhoon Kong-rei and is to be held at noon on Saturday instead, the concert organizer SuperDome said in a statement this afternoon. Tonight’s concert at Taipei Arena was to be the first of four consecutive nightly performances by Lau in Taipei, but it was called off at the request of Taipei Metro, the operator of the venue, due to the weather, said the organizer. Taipei Metro said the concert was cancelled out of consideration for the audience’s safety. The decision disappointed a number of Lau’s fans who had
Commuters in Taipei picked their way through debris and navigated disrupted transit schedules this morning on their way to work and school, as the city was still working to clear the streets in the aftermath of Typhoon Kong-rey. By 11pm yesterday, there were estimated 2,000 trees down in the city, as well as 390 reports of infrastructure damage, 318 reports of building damage and 307 reports of fallen signs, the Taipei Public Works Department said. Workers were mobilized late last night to clear the debris as soon as possible, the department said. However, as of this morning, many people were leaving messages
A tropical depression east of the Philippines became a tropical storm early yesterday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said, less than a week after a typhoon barreled across the nation. The agency issued an advisory at 3:30am stating that the 22nd tropical storm, named Yinxing, of the Pacific typhoon season formed at 2am. As of 8am, the storm was 1,730km southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan’s southernmost point, with a 100km radius. It was moving west-northwest at 32kph, with maximum sustained winds of 83kph and gusts of up to 108kph. Based on its current path, the storm is not expected to hit Taiwan, CWA
A Canadian dental assistant was recently indicted by prosecutors after she was caught in August trying to smuggle 32kg of marijuana into Taiwan, the Aviation Police Bureau said on Wednesday. The 30-year-old was arrested on Aug. 4 after arriving on a flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport, Chang Tsung-lung (張驄瀧), a squad chief in the Aviation Police Bureau’s Criminal Investigation Division, told reporters. Customs officials noticed irregularities when the woman’s two suitcases passed through X-ray baggage scanners, Chang said. Upon searching them, officers discovered 32.61kg of marijuana, which local media outlets estimated to have a market value of more than NT$50 million (US$1.56
RSS