Taiwan has one of the world’s highest recycling rates and its efforts have drawn global attention thanks to an effective combination of government policy and participation from manufacturers and citizens, the ROC Environmental Protection Administration said Dec. 18.
“Zero-waste recycling is one of the EPA’s five main strategies,” said EPA Deputy Minister Chang Tzi-chin at the Dec. 18-19 International Conference on Resource Recycling in Taipei City.
“To achieve this goal, measures such as compulsory garbage separation by category, the Four-in-One Resource Recycling Program, and pay-as-you-go trash bags have been introduced. Garbage production has fallen from a peak 1.1 kilograms per person per day in 1998 to 397 grams in 2012, while the recycling rate has risen to 54.36 percent over the same period.”
The four-in-one program of source reduction, reuse, recycling and green consumption was launched in 1997, aiming to inculcate a spirit of producer responsibility within a recycling framework based on regulations and economic incentives, the EPA said. Levies on manufacturers and importers are paid into a fund which disburses payments to local garbage disposal teams, recycling businesses and members of the community to sort and prepare trash for recycling.
“Under the influence of the four-in-one inititative, global media such as the New York Times Nov. 29 and BBC March 1 have reported on Taiwan’s successful recycling program,” Chang said.
The theme of this year’s conference was sustainable cities, showing Taiwan’s aspiration to build sustainable, resource-recycling metropolises, taking environmental protection into consideration while pursuing economic development, as well as its willingness to work with other countries and lead by example.
According to the EPA, the conference drew more than 200 academics, government officials and businesspeople from home and abroad, including Germany, India, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand and the U.K., to share their cities’ experience in managing garbage disposal and recycling.
The conference, now in its sixth year, has become an important international channel for sharing environmental protection information, the EPA added.
