The Ministry of Environment yesterday called for action to address the nation’s waste problem, promising that regulations on recycling would be drafted by the end of this year to meet the government goal of achieving zero waste.
In a presentation at the Legislative Yuan’s Social Welfare and Environmental Hygiene Committee, Minister of Environment Peng Chi-ming (彭啟明) said that existing incinerators have successively been closed for renovation and expansion to boost processing capacity, but even with the increased capacity, it would still take about 10 years to fully dispose of the massive amount of waste.
The quantity of stored general waste increased from 210,000 tonnes in 2018 to 840,000 tonnes last year due to lifestyle changes, which have boosted the amount of packaging waste from online shopping and food delivery and takeout, as well as deployment of a new statistical model that includes joss paper burned and trash from large events, he said.
Photo courtesy of the Nantou County Fire Bureau
Peng also proposed a progressive plan for waste management.
Aside from stimulating the solid recovered fuel (SRF) industry and coordinating waste incineration in cities and counties for the short term, the ministry would add five incinerators in the medium term, bringing the total number of incinerators to 29 by the end of 2027 and boosting the nation’s gross processing capacity from 6.81 million tonnes to 7 million tonnes per year, Peng said.
In the long term, legislation would be formulated to regulate sources of waste, encourage non-governmental participation, promote reuse and recycle, and forbid illegal disposal, he said.
Legislators raised issues about trash mountains, illegal dumping and landfill fires.
Taiwan People’s Party Legislator Chen Chao-tzu (陳昭姿) said that Hsinchu County’s landfill caught fire nearly 70 times within five years, while Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) Legislator Lin Yueh-chin said that the trash piled up at Taoyuan’s temporary disposal site pollutes the air and might collapse.
Incidents of illegal dumping at head-water points in central and southern Taiwan cause water pollution, Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) Legislator Chen Ching-hui (陳菁徽) said.
Underground disposal of construction waste lacks supervision, with the amount of waste reaching as much as 1.26 million tonnes per year in New Taipei City alone, KMT Legislator Sean Liao (廖偉翔) added.
Other lawmakers raised suggestions on how to address the waste problem.
KMT Legislator Chiu Chen-chun (邱鎮軍) advised the ministry to reward cities and counties that build new incinerators, while fellow KMT Legislator Niu Hsu-ting (牛煦庭) said that interregional collaboration on waste processing should be normalized and subsidies should be offered as incentives.
More hazardous air pollution monitoring stations should be built to track the future burning of SRFs, DPP Legislator Lin Shu-fen (林淑芬) said.
DPP Legislator Hung Shen-han (洪申翰) invited Peng to experience firsthand the difficulties faced by scavengers, to which Peng said yes.
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