In the 1980s, a waste crisis was looming over Taiwan: a combination of high population density and fast industrial growth had left the island with little space to expand its fast-disappearing landfill capacity. The Taiwan Environmental Protection Agency (TEPA) responded in 1990 by announcing a plan to build 21 large-scale energy-from-waste incinerators. Ultimately, it wanted at least one incinerator in each of the 14 counties, and in 1996, plans were laid for a further 15 municipal solid waste incinerators.

Some in the Taiwanese population, however, did not share the government’s vision, and a grassroots anti-incineration movement was born and quickly gained strength. The Taiwan Watch Institute (TWI) was one of the organisations involved in the movement from the start. Herlin Hsieh, a Researcher at the TWI, explains the logic: “The health of residents near the incinerators, the environment, and the foods safety of all the people, are threatened by the toxins emitted from the incinerators.

“Thanks to the solidarity of the communities near the sites (or planned sites) of incinerators, the anti-incinerators movement successfully stopped the construction of 10 incinerators by 2006.”

In 2003, TEPA initiated a new approach to waste management: a zero waste policy. At first, incineration was included in the plan, but following further community action, TEPA prioritised policies such as waste reduction and recycling. Mandatory waste separation, requiring people to sort their waste into recyclables, food waste and residual waste now takes place. Three quarters of the food waste is sent to pig farms and the rest is composted.

Another important part of TEPA’s new strategy is extended producer responsibility (EPR), which makes producers responsible for reducing their waste output. Taiwanese producers now have to meet recycling targets for post-consumer PET bottles, tyres, containers, batteries, vehicles and waste electrical items. To take one example, in 2008, cafeterias and food outlets were required to provide their customers with reusable, rather than disposable, chopsticks, which has cut chopstick use by 44 million pairs per year.

‘Pay-as-you-throw’ (PAYT) systems, designed to encourage waste reduction and separation, have also achieved impressive results. In regions that use PAYT, households are required to buy certified bags for their residual waste. PAYT was introduced in Taiwan’s largest city, Xinbei, in 2008 and by January 2011 residual waste production had dropped by 47.3 per cent.

Taiwan has come a long way since the 1980s. TEPA says: “The collected waste for recycling increased from 554,200 tonnes in 1998 to 2,537,847 tonnes as of October 2012, which represents an increase in the recycling rate from 5.87 per cent to 41.3 per cent.” And while work clearly remains to be done, Hsieh recognises the achievements of the zero waste policies: “We acknowledge the efforts of TEPA in reducing and recycling the garbage during these years.”

However, waste incineration still forms a major part of TEPA’s waste strategy, with landfilling accounting for just 3.04 per cent of residual waste, while 96.96 per cent of residuals (or roughly half of all waste arisings) is still incinerated, rather than recycled.

It is this policy that the TWI continues to oppose. Of particular concern to the TWI is the use of incinerator ash in road building.
Hsieh explains: “The bottom ashes from incinerators are very toxic, containing high levels of various heavy metals. But, as in many industrial countries, TEPA allows the ‘recycling’ of bottom ash as the aggregates for paving roads.”

Indeed, speaking to Resource, TEPA presents this practice as part of its recycling strategy: “A total of 717,288 tonnes of incinerator bottom ash were processed and reutilised, with a reutilisation rate of 11.66 per cent“, as of October 2012.

Taiwan’s incinerator capacity now exceeds the amount of waste available for incineration, which not only signals the success of the zero waste policies, but also makes TEPA’s policy to continue pursuing incineration somewhat perplexing. The total amount of incinerated waste per day in 2012 was 17,439 tonnes, but the capacity of Taiwan’s 24 incinerators surpasses this, at 24,650 tonnes per day. TEPA has had to come up with increasingly inventive ways of fuelling the incinerators; Hseih describes how “combustible general industrial waste” is being sent to household waste incinerators, adding: “Recently, they tried to dig out garbage from old landfills in order to feed the hungry incinerators.”

Given that 57.9 per cent of the material Taiwan burns is recyclable or compostable, Hsieh suggests the way forward lies in significantly extending Taiwan’s already successful policies: “We urge that our government should extend the EPR mechanism to all waste products containing plastic, not just bottles [and] electric equipment. In addition, TEPA should help local government to install sufficient composting facilities in order to completely divert food waste from incinerators.”

Hsieh adds: “If the money used to build the incinerators could be diverted to other ways, such as teaching and encouraging people to reduce and separate the garbage, installing facilities for recycling, and [requiring] the producers to take recycling responsibility when their products become waste, a lot of money and people’s health can be saved.”