Taiwan Today

Taiwan has committed itself to the path of maximizing the reuse of resources while minimizing the generation of waste.

It is the second Sunday of the month—the designated Environmental Protection Day for the Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation, Taiwan’s largest Buddhist charity. As usual, 56-year-old Chen Jin-hai drives a pickup truck, instead of his own Mercedes Benz, around his community in Luzhou City, Taipei County, to collect recyclable items from households, organizations and businesses. He has been following this routine for nearly 20 years.

When Chen first started his rounds, his neighbors looked on dubiously, assuming that he had failed in his business and was trying to survive by collecting garbage. Chen, however, was—and still is—the president of a successful construction company. It is just that he has entrusted most corporate affairs to his other business partners so that he can devote 80 percent of his time to Tzu Chi-organized environmental protection work.

Back in 1990, while giving a lecture in Taichung, central Taiwan, Dharma Master Cheng Yen, the founder of Tzu Chi, called on members of the audience to engage in environmental protection by “turning garbage into gold and gold into love.” Tzu Chi volunteers nationwide responded to Cheng Yen’s call and have thrown themselves into environmental cleanup and resource recycling ever since.

Chen is among them. “Doing recycling has motivated me to examine and cherish everything in my life, and consequently improved my relationship with my wife, which had deteriorated,” he says. “This kind of work makes my life worthwhile as I’m playing a part in saving the Earth, which is being threatened by environmental problems that include climate change.”

So far, about 50,000 Tzu Chi volunteers have shared the ideal of safeguarding the environment and set up some 4,500 recycling stations across Taiwan. They drive pickups to collect recyclables regularly at designated locations and take them back to their sorting stations, where the items are separated into different categories like containers, clothes, hardware, electrical appliances and furniture. Those that are repairable are set aside for people in need, while the remaining items are largely sold to recyclers, with the resultant earnings used to help finance the operation of Da Ai TV, a Tzu Chi affiliate.

Bottles to Blankets

One of Tzu Chi’s own recycling initiatives is making blankets from recycled plastic bottles. The blankets have been distributed to economically distressed households in Taiwan, as well as to disaster victims in Taiwan, mainland China, the United States, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and the Philippines.

Chen recalls that during the first five years of Tzu Chi’s recycling venture, he and other volunteers constantly searched for better ways to go about their work, as there were no relevant examples to refer to in Taiwan at the time. Still, the recycling effort, which began in members’ homes, gradually expanded to neighborhoods, communities and then whole cities. Chen says he is glad to see that an extensive grassroots recycling network led by Tzu Chi has taken shape.

Ho Soon-ching, director-general of the Environmental Protection Administration’s (EPA) Department of Waste Management, says Taiwan’s waste handling has undergone a long-term evolution from landfills in the 1980s and incineration in the 1990s to the current practice of recycling. Because of the island’s small land area and large population, the construction of landfills and incinerators often encountered strong protests from nearby residents. Some have viewed the protests as evidence of a “not in my backyard” mentality, but on a small, densely packed island, it does not take long for environmental degradation to affect a large number of people.

In 1998, the EPA under the Executive Yuan took the important steps of establishing the Recycling Fund Management Board (RFMB) and launching the Resource Recycling Four-in-One Program, which combines the efforts of community residents, recycling enterprises and municipal garbage collection teams with the financial resources of the government’s Recycling Fund. The EPA’s minister, currently Stephen Shu-hung Shen, serves as the chairperson of the RFMB, the members of which are representatives from government agencies, trade and industry associations, academia, civic organizations and consumer and environmental groups.

Extended Responsibility

Lin Chien-hui, executive director of the RFMB, says the board’s goals are to introduce the concept of extended producer responsibility and encourage the public as a whole to participate in recycling by means of a subsidy system. To achieve these goals, the RFMB relies on measures such as its namesake Recycling Fund, special financing, tax exemptions, deductions on recycling-related investments and assistance in obtaining environmental technology or land for renewable resource recovery and reuse.

The Recycling Fund’s income comes in the form of fees paid by manufacturers, importers and vendors of “due recyclable waste,” which the EPA classifies into two main types: containers and commodities. The EPA further divides these two types into 14 categories that contain 33 items, ranging from aluminum, glass, iron, plastic and pesticide containers to batteries, automobiles and motorcycles, tires, lubricants, information technology products, household appliances and light bulbs.

The fees paid to the Recycling Fund by businesses, which are set by the RFMB’s Fee Review Committee, include charges for collection, removal and treatment. The collected fees currently amount to some NT$6 billion (US$187.5 million) annually. The board uses the money to subsidize waste disposal and recycling companies, as well as the recycling efforts of local governments, communities, schools, civic organizations and retail shops.

Lin says that in many countries, civic groups perform most of the recycling, while in Taiwan it is mainly carried out under the RFMB, which itself operates under the purview of the EPA. The board’s oversight, combined with the fee, subsidy and incentive mechanisms, has made the operation of Taiwan’s recycling system very successful, Lin says.

The EPA’s Ho acknowledges that Taiwan’s recycling efforts were initiated by civic groups and private companies in the 1990s, but says that progress remained limited due to their poor economies of scale. It was not until the RFMB was set up that different categories of mandatory recyclable items were established and systematically put into practice, she says. “The operation of the RFMB has acted as a stabilizing force in the domestic recycling market in that it ensures firm purchase prices for recyclable items regardless of fluctuations in international prices, which encourages enterprises to invest in recycling businesses and technologies,” Ho says. “What’s more, through the organization’s active promotion of recycling, members of the public largely can identify with the policy and are willing to cooperate.”

Over the last 10 years, the government has stepped up efforts to formulate and implement recycling policies including economic incentives, educational campaigns and mandatory garbage separation schemes. The implementation of these measures, Chen says, has substantially altered public attitudes and increased awareness of recycling.

The problems associated with landfills and incinerators, together with heightened environmental concerns, also propelled the government to review and revise its waste management policy in early 2000, thereafter shifting its focus from disposal to source reduction, recycling and reuse. Consequently, more attention has since been paid to green design and production and reduced consumption.

Another landmark in the development of recycling in Taiwan came in 2002, when the Resource Recycling and Reuse Act was promulgated to encourage new technologies for resource recovery and to spur manufacturers to take entire product lifecycles into account, beginning with initial design and extending through manufacture, usage, recovery and reuse. The year 2002 also saw the EPA impose restrictions on free plastic bags offered to shoppers at the time of purchase, which has resulted in some 2 billion fewer shopping bags being used each year. Finally, 2002 ushered in restrictions on the use of disposable tableware by government agencies, department stores, shopping centers, supermarkets, fast food restaurants and convenience stores.

In 2005, the government introduced a waste sorting program that requires households to separate recyclables from kitchen waste and general trash. Seven cities and 10 counties participated in the first phase of the program that year. The program’s second phase came the following year, when the sorting became mandatory island-wide.

Also in 2005, the EPA introduced a regulation to curb excessive packaging used in gift boxes, a move that is estimated to reduce the amount of packaging waste by 7,300 tons a year. Restrictions were also introduced in 2005 on the production and sales of mercury-containing batteries and thermometers, with the result that an average of 850 fewer kilograms of mercury have been used in the production of these items each year since.

In 2006, a complete ban on disposable tableware and paper cups was imposed on all government agencies, a ban that was extended to schools in 2007. These measures are estimated to prevent 2,600 tons of disposable tableware and 276 tons of paper cups from entering the waste stream each year.

Paying Off

Tallies compiled by the EPA indicate that these recycling endeavors are paying off. The island’s daily per capita garbage clearance volume, for instance, decreased by 54 percent from 1.13 kilograms in 1998, when the RFMB was founded, to 0.52 kilograms in 2008. During the same 10-year period, the total weight of collected recyclables surged from 554,700 tons to 2.43 million tons, while the overall recycling rate jumped from 6 percent to 32 percent. If food waste and bulk waste—which includes items like furniture, bicycles and garden waste—were counted in the tally, the island’s recycling rate would reach 42 percent.

All of these figures, Ho says, indicate that the amount of waste dumped into landfills and burned in incinerators has dropped substantially over time. This is important when one considers that 96 percent of Taiwan’s non-recyclable garbage is incinerated, and that for every kilogram of waste that is recycled instead of burned, 0.92 kilograms less in carbon dioxide (CO₂) emissions are released into the atmosphere. In fact, Taiwan’s waste processing volume has taken an encouraging turn, plummeting from a historic high of 8.88 million tons in 1997 to 4.37 million tons in 2008, less than half the 1997 level, which amounts to an annual reduction of 4.15 million tons in CO₂ emissions.

Aside from lowering CO₂ emissions and reducing the use of raw materials, Ho says that recycling can have huge economic benefits. It is estimated that recycling items in the due recyclable waste category of containers, for example, saves NT$720 million (US$22.5 million) in garbage disposal expenses each year, while also creating an annual production value of NT$9 billion (US$281.3 million) when the containers are recycled into raw materials. After processing, these materials can be used to make shopping bags, building materials, clothes, blankets and glassware, among other things.

Ho says Taiwan’s recycling policy is fairly advanced compared to industrialized countries such as Japan and the United States, which have not yet imposed restrictions on the use of plastic bags. As a result, the island’s recycling efforts have become well recognized and are referred to in the international community. During their visits to Taiwan, for example, many international tourists report being surprised when they see local residents waiting by the curb at fixed times for garbage and recyclables trucks to arrive, their trash and recyclable items already sorted.

The RFMB’s Lin Chien-hui says Taiwan’s recycling rate for used batteries increased from 21 percent in 2005 to 67 percent in 2008, far outperforming the targets set by the European Union (EU) Battery Directive for member states to reach a 25 percent battery recycling rate by 2012 and 45 percent by 2016. Also, compared to the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive promulgated in the EU in 2003, Taiwan has moved faster, launching its own guidelines for the category in 1997. The number of recycled electrical and electronic products reached 1.47 million units in 2008, while the total for recycled information technology products reached 2.77 million that same year. The overall reutilization rate for such recycled products has reached more than 70 percent, aided by the efforts of 13 domestic recycling companies in the field.

Another area where Taiwan plays a leading global role is in the field of automobile recycling, which the island began regulating in 1994, compared to the EU in 2000, Japan in 2005 and South Korea in 2007. In 2008, the island’s 223 domestic auto recyclers and five treatment plants helped boost the recycling rate for used automobile parts and components to 73 percent. Their expertise and equipment, Lin says, have won international recognition and been exported to Japan and mainland China.

Exporting Experience

Lin Chien-hui takes pride in saying that several countries including Japan, mainland China, Thailand, Germany, the Netherlands and South Africa have organized fact-finding trips to Taiwan to learn about the implementation of recycling schemes. Last year, members of Taiwan’s recycling industry were also invited to Thailand, where they were asked for input on establishing a recycling system. Mainland China has also drawn on the experience of Taiwan’s recycling management fund system to create a regulatory framework for recycling waste electrical and electronic items. Regulations on these items are scheduled to take effect in the mainland in 2011.

Tsai Min-shing serves as chairman of the Formosa Association of Resource Recycling (FARR), which provides services ranging from holding seminars for recycling industry experts and government agencies to introducing advanced recycling techniques from abroad. Tsai attributes Taiwan’s international reputation for recycling to the government’s pairing of strict regulations with economic incentives, which have encouraged many enterprises to develop recycling technologies. “In terms of recycling, Taiwan is ranked among the top countries in the world and probably only trails Germany and Japan,” Tsai says. “Its comprehensive legal framework leads to recycling of general and industrial waste across the board.”

Tsai believes that Taiwan’s recycling effort can be traced back to the Waste Disposal Act, which was promulgated in 1974 and has since been amended nine times to include the practices of waste sorting, recycling and extended producer responsibility. He also praises the Resource Recycling and Reuse Act passed in 2002 for providing sound guiding principles, legal and regulatory measures, environmental design principles and a consultation and incentive mechanism.

Still, Tsai notes the government has not yet clearly defined exactly what constitutes “waste” and what is considered a “resource,” an omission that makes regulation more difficult. The management principles for waste disposal, he adds, should be different from those for recyclables. Scrap iron, for example, is classified as waste in Taiwan, with its inbound and outbound shipments thus subject to the control of the EPA. In his opinion, scrap iron that can be refined for reuse is not waste and should not be regulated by waste disposal laws, but instead should fall under the same guidelines as other raw materials. Removing the EPA regulations on scrap iron, Tsai says, would allow recycled scrap iron vendors to compete on a more equal basis with raw material sellers. The EPA, he adds, should only regulate waste items that do not have recycling value.

Tsai also says that while Taiwan has a good command of recycling technologies for waste paper and plastic bottles, it has yet to cultivate expertise for refining scrap metals like copper. Every year, Taiwan imports 800,000 tons of copper and produces some 500,000 tons of waste copper, which could be recycled into 100,000 tons of “new” copper. However, as Taiwan lacks the facilities to recycle it, the waste copper is largely exported to Japan and mainland China. Spying a business opportunity, FARR is now coordinating with companies in Taiwan to set up a copper refinery.

Tsai emphasizes that recycling is imperative for Taiwan not only because of its limited natural and land resources, but it also carries the benefit of allowing for industrial development while at the same time protecting the environment. “Recycling is not only about environmental protection, but also concerns resources,” Tsai says. “With its strong technological capability and government-initiated incentive mechanism in place, Taiwan is well poised to develop the recycling industry while turning itself into a recycling-oriented society.”

Write to Kelly Her at kelly@mail.gio.gov.tw