Taiwan’s government watchdog has called for stricter controls on microplastics and plasticisers, warning that existing policies focus on reducing plastic use rather than directly curbing the spread of microscopic particles that international studies increasingly link to health risks.
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Control Yuan, the supervisory and auditory branch of the government of Taiwan, found in a recent investigation that the island lacks regular monitoring of microplastics in tap water.
The agency’s supervisory committee member Tien Chiu-chin also found that Taiwan has not updated standards for food containers to reflect tighter international limits on hazardous substances and has that more than 70 per cent of plastic household gloves on the market fail safety tests.
Tien has written to the island’s Cabinet, Executive Yuan, urging ministries including the Environment Ministry to review and improve their policies.
Although Taiwan has introduced a range of plastic reduction measures, “none of them directly regulate microplastics themselves,” Tien said, comparing Taipei’s approach with the European Union’s “Zero Pollution Action Plan”, which aims to cut environmental microplastic emissions by 30 per cent by 2030 from 2016 levels.
Taiwan’s current targets for 2030, based on a 2020 baseline, include a 25 per cent reduction in single-use plastic packaging, a 70 per cent recycling rate for plastic packaging and a requirement that 25 per cent of plastic packaging content come from recycled materials. Tien said those goals had limited relevance to the actual volume of microplastics released into the environment.
Citing international research published in 2024 and 2025, Tien said microplastics and nanoplastics have been linked to cardiovascular and neurological diseases. One study found that patients with microplastics detected in carotid artery plaques were 4.53 times more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke or death than those without such particles.
She criticised Taiwan’s Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for what she described as an overly cautious stance, saying it had cited limited international literature and a lack of analytical methods to avoid its legal obligation to build a comprehensive risk assessment and response system under the Food Safety Act.
The FDA has not publicly responded to the report.
Tien also said the agency had not followed up on a 2021 government-funded project assessing the safety and exposure risks of microplastics in food.
Water testing data cited in the report showed that surveys by the Environment Ministry in 2017 and 2018 found microplastics in treated drinking water at 44 of 100 purification plants, and in raw water at 8 of 23 sites tested. A 2025 survey of 37 plants found microplastics in treated water at eight locations.
Control Yuan recommended that the Economic Affairs Ministry help water utilities adopt a risk prevention approach and consider incorporating safeguards on microplastics into official drinking water quality standards.
Taiwan Water Corp Vice President Wu Ching-wen told local media outlet KnowNews that microplastics are widespread in the environment and that levels detected at some plants were “extremely low” and “far below” international reference standards.
However, Control Yuan’s report also highlighted large discrepancies between surveys conducted by the Environment Ministry and the Taiwan’s Ocean Affairs Council, a separate government agency, on microplastics in coastal waters, beaches, river mouths and marine organisms. It said differences in sampling and testing methods made it impossible to track environmental spread or food chain accumulation.
Tien called for the two agencies to integrate resources, standardise testing techniques and build a national baseline database to support future regulatory measures.
Across Asia, there is a growing recognition of microplastic pollution as a public and environmental health issue, particularly in regional research and in frameworks such as Asean’s marine debris action plan.
However, few countries have yet implemented comprehensive, enforceable microplastic-specific regulations of the kind emerging in the EU or discussed in Taiwan’s recent watchdog report.
Most current efforts in the region remain focused on reducing macroplastic waste, which fragments into microplastics, by banning microbeads in cosmetics or strengthening recycling and plastic use policies.
