Many with middle-aged Taiwanese share childhood memories of the oversized tricycles fitted with large trays that made the rounds of their neighborhoods collecting glass, paper, tin cans and scrap metal. The old men who drove them would trade the domestic detritus for candy or a few cents. The occasional cart can still be seen early in the morning, piled precariously high with flattened boxes, but the ways in which waste is dealt with has gone well beyond the three-wheeler of days gone by.
Environmental concerns and economic necessity forced a certain urgency on government efforts to address waste issues. In 1988, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) amended the Waste Disposal Act of 1974 in order to change the focus of responsibility toward waste management. "The revision was the beginning of the manufacturer-responsibility approach," says Lin Chien-hui, executive secretary of the EPA's Recycling Fund Management Committee. Waste industry groups worked with the regulator to develop recycling strategies and goals, implemented them and reported their achievements to the EPA.
Turn About
Since the EPA had no means of checking the reported recycling rates, the system failed. In 1997, further revision of the Waste Disposal Act required that manufacturers and importers of waste register with the EPA and pay "recycling fees" into the organization's recycling management fund. This fund, Lin explains, is used to subsidize the collection and treatment of waste, education programs and related research and development. Currently, the fund totals NT$6 billion (US$188 million) and is managed by a committee consisting of government officials, academics and industry representatives.
The EPA began conducting public awareness campaigns on the need to reduce and recycle domestic waste; the earliest of these, the "alien babies" project, took place in 1990. Containers in four colors, shaped like and called alien babies, were positioned around town to "eat" paper, glass, metal and plastic. Many residents, however, rather than feeding them the designated recyclables, treated them as convenient repositories for all trash, and before long the alien babies themselves became recyclables.
A major environmental issue at the time was the pollution caused by the dumping of polyethylene terephthalate, or PET, bottles. The recycling of such containers had been low prior to 1992, when the EPA announced that for every empty bottle returned to the retailer, a manufacturer refund of NT$2 (US$0.05) would be available. PET bottle rates of return rose to more than 100 percent. Shen Chih-hsiu, a researcher at the EPA's Environmental Analysis Laboratory, explains that the reason for the impossibly high return rate was that manufacturers under-reported production quantities so that they could contribute less to the recycling fund. As the fund plummeted, the refund available to consumers shrank first to NT$1, then NT$0.5 and finally nothing in 2002. "Management of the fund was questionable, but the campaign was a success," Shen says. "Our survey shows that 80 percent of consumers still recycle their PET bottles even without a refund, which indicates that the campaign succeeded in making recycling a habit."
More than 1,500 Taiwanese companies are involved in waste management. (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
Money, however, has not formed such admirable habits with other recyclables. For every automobile and motorcycle brought to designated sites, the owner gets a refund of NT$3,000 (US$90) and $1,000 ($30), respectively. Although growing at an annual rate of 20 percent, the recycling rate in 2005 for automobiles was 37 percent and 30 percent for motorcycles. "The reward is too small to be attractive," says Lin Chien-hui. The EPA is considering a refundable surcharge of NT$20,000 (US$600) on car prices to promote recycling. "It's apparently a much stronger motive, especially when it's out of your own pocket," he says.
Refundable recyclables aside, the environmental agency found that the public is not as enthusiastic about other materials. A typical household trash bag might contain everything from bamboo chopsticks and styrofoam lunch boxes to glass and plastic products. So since 1997 the EPA has promoted "four-in-one" resource recycling, calling for a joint effort by the public, local governments, recycling businesses and the Recycling Fund Management Committee. The sorting of trash was phased in over a period of time, receiving great support from local governments and private groups such as the Homemakers' Union and Foundation, and became mandatory nationwide in 2006.
What Goes Around
The variety of things that are reused has increased greatly. Since 1998, for example, computers have been deemed recyclable, and that year alone, 238 metric tons were recycled, growing to 9,198 in 2005. Used furniture has also been given a new lease on life. With a free collection service available from local governments, furniture is repaired and thoroughly cleaned before ending up in council retail spaces or on their Web sites. And in 2006 compact disks and mobile phones were included.
Using producer responsibility and mandatory classification as its waste management strategy appears to have been a success for the EPA, and statistics suggest the "four-in-one" project has been working well, too. The weight of total domestic recyclables increased from 129,155 metric tons in 1998 to more than 1.75 million in 2005, or a jump from 5.87 to 22.91 percent of waste being reused. According to the EPA, more than 40 percent of residential trash in Taiwan can be recycled, which means the job is currently only half done.
In comparison to household recycling, the industrial sector has been much more aggressive. From 1998 to 2005, recycled industrial waste increased from 4.8 million to 7.8 million metric tons, or a rate of 70 percent of all industrial waste. "Making industries deal with their own waste forced significant developments in reducing environmental damage," says Lin Chih-sen, president of the Taiwan Green Productivity Foundation. "It all happened in just 15 years."
With technical assistance from local research organizations such as the Industrial Technology Research Institute (ITRI), government-run enterprises were the first to come to the clean up party. The China Hi-Ment Corporation, for example, was set up in 1991. With joint investment from the steel and cement industries, the company processes blast furnace slag produced by the steel industry into cement or slag powder. Taiwan Power Co. has also been processing the fly ash from its plants so that it can be used in concrete for public works. "They're just like white blood cells to industries' blood," Lin says. "They quietly clean up the mess, make it useful and make sure the industries survive."
Give Me a Break
Marked as an emerging industry that enjoys government incentives such as tax and import duty relief, the waste management sphere has started to attract foreign and local investors. "The recycling industry has grown by 10 percent every year," Lin says. "While many industries have moved or plan to move abroad, this is one that still has lots of potential."
About 40 percent of household waste could be recycled but only half that amount actually is. (Photo by Chang Su-ching)
Super Dragon Technology Co., Ltd. was established in 1996 and has been one of the sector's most successful companies. With technical assistance from ITRI and machines from Germany and Japan, Super Dragon extracts precious metals from integrated circuit and printed circuit boards, and its clients include Taiwan's top manufacturers in the information industry. Company founder Wu Yao-hsun explains that 1 kilogram of gold can be extracted from roughly six metric tons of "raw materials," and his company can produce 180 kilograms of pure gold, as well as smaller quantities of other metals such as silver and copper, per month. Wu is very proud that his company is one of the world's 13 companies that is able to do this. "They're making that stuff smaller and smaller, so the technical skill required in this trade is getting higher and higher," he says. "Taiwan is a major manufacturer of computers, so of course, as a member of the global village, it should have the ability to recycle them."
Big business has also shown interest in the trade. The Formosa Environmental Technology Corporation, invested by Formosa Plastics Group, is targeting the recycling of kitchen waste. The company's Yangmei site in Taoyuan County processes kitchen waste into organic compost which is used to grow organic vegetables at the company's own farm. Formosa started selling its first organic vegetables in August last year, and although its output is small, the company believes that there is an annual NT$50 billion (US$1.5 billion) market for organic compost and is planning on setting up seven more processing facilities in other parts of the island.
By the end of 2005, there were already more than 1,500 companies in waste management and recycling. Together, they generated a production value of NT$36 billion (US$1.1 billion) in 2005. Not all of them, however, can expect further growth; smaller operators have been facing serious challenges. "The technology requirements are getting higher and higher," says Lin Chih-sen. "Small companies that can't afford R&D or to promote themselves will eventually lose their competitiveness."
The scale of waste management has gone way past the three-wheeled truck and its rewards far beyond candy and a few cents, but the essence of the business remains the same--making a living out of yesterday's trash.