Garbage War Deadlock Remains Unresolved After Half a Year, Operators Blast the Environmental Protection Administration
In the middle of last year, a garbage war broke out in central and southern Taiwan and has yet to be resolved. In Yunlin County, which has no incinerator, townships such as Douliu, Beigang and Huwei are still piled with garbage. Legislators have criticized that once the weather warms up, this could lead to public health problems. Last month, the Control Yuan issued a correction against the Environmental Protection Administration for improper garbage scheduling and handling. However, at the recent "National-Level Policy Meeting on the Proper Handling of Household Waste and Industrial Waste," the EPA still did not substantively discuss this hot potato, prompting waste clearance operators attending the meeting to criticize that "the meeting might as well not have been held."
Reviewing the Garbage War: EPA Takes Half a Year to Draft a Policy White Paper
Last year, because a nationwide garbage crisis broke out, Taichung, Changhua, Nantou and Yunlin and other places piled up nearly 40,000 tonnes of garbage that was not disposed of. In October, the Legislative Yuan demanded that the EPA convene a "national-level policy meeting" and also submit a "policy planning white paper" before April 20 of this year.
After nearly half a year of discussion, the EPA separately convened consensus-building meetings, regional preparatory meetings for the north, central, south and east, and a national-level policy meeting. Facing the urgent garbage disposal problem, the EPA said it will strengthen the regional joint defense cooperation mechanism, first burning household waste, and only burning general industrial waste when there is spare capacity.
The so-called "regional joint defense" means that counties and cities with incinerators can assist, through administrative contracts, with household waste generated by counties and cities without incinerators. The EPA has currently planned 5 regions: Taipei, New Taipei, Keelung, Yilan and Hualien; Taoyuan, Hsinchu and Miaoli; Taichung, Changhua and Nantou; Yunlin, Chiayi and Tainan; and Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung. In other words, Yunlin County, which has no incinerator, must entrust the household waste it generates to Chiayi and Tainan for assistance.
However, this regional joint defense already failed by the end of last year. Taipei's incinerator stated that it would not accept garbage from other counties and cities. Taichung City and Changhua County first accepted general industrial waste, causing household waste that should have been incinerated first to be piled outside. Kaohsiung's incinerator raised garbage disposal fees to increase the disposal costs of industrial waste operators from outside counties and cities, leaving some counties and cities with nowhere to send their garbage.
The EPA's poor scheduling was further corrected by the Control Yuan in February this year. The correction text mentioned that cross-county and cross-city cooperation had been promoted for more than 10 years, and although the total national incineration capacity was clearly 2 times the amount of household waste, a garbage crisis still broke out. This shows that problems existed in the EPA's unified scheduling and allocation, risk forecasting and emergency response management.
Taoyuan Garbage City? Incinerators Saturated, Industrial Waste Piled Everywhere
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