By Serena Lin
Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity. I say, let your trash be two or three and not a hundred or a thousand. Yet think about the amount of trash we produce, from chopstick wrappers to the old PC you just threw out. Or visit a landfill and see how “productive” your city is. Then you will understand what a complicated life we are living in. According to statistics released by the Environmental Protection Association (EPA), we consume 105,000 tons of plastic bags in Taiwan annually, and among them plastic shopping bags add up to 65,000 tons. That is about 20 billion pieces in total, or an average of 2.5 pieces per capita per day. As to disposable tableware, the approximate 17,700,000 persons who eat out every day consume 59,000 tons of tableware, including 43,000 tons of disposable plastic tableware. Plastic shopping bags and tableware have become an inseparable part of modern life, and we consumers enjoy the convenience. Yet, wait a minute, is it really pure pleasure? In the process of incineration, the major type of waste treatment in Taiwan, a lot of plastic waste – for instance, PVC and PS – will produce dioxins. Plastic materials that are spread into the environment often block sewers, which leads to flooding. Plastic bags and tableware float in rivers and streams and accumulate on riversides and seacoasts, destroying the ecosystem. Plastic tableware is also not easily recycled, and even if it is recycled, its post-recycling products are not of high economic value for reuse. To tackle these problems, the EPA has launched a series of new policies. From July 1, 2002, all government-run stores were banned from providing free plastic shopping bags to customers, as well as disposable tableware. And from January 1, 2003, the use of plastic shopping bags and plastic tableware is restricted everywhere – supermarkets, department stores, convenience stores, retailers, and the fast food industry. These sectors are no longer allowed to use plastic bags containing PE, PP, PS, and PVC, or to offer customers disposable plastic tableware, including that which is made of Styrofoam. The main idea of this policy is a concept called “zero waste.” It addresses waste management from the source rather than a traditional end-of-the-pipe control. Rather than producing a huge amount of waste and recycling it or dumping it into the landfill or incinerator, it is better to reduce the amount of waste production from the source and effectively implement resource reuse. Although recycling is now a growing habit, it alone will not end our dependency on landfills and incinerators, nor reverse the rapid depletion of our natural resources. Only by maximizing recycling and minimizing waste can we ensure that products are made to be reused, repaired or recycled back into nature or the marketplace. Through the concept of zero waste, we can establish a novel way of looking at our waste stream. Instead of seeing used materials as garbage in need of disposal, discards are seen as valuable resources. A pile of trash represents jobs, financial opportunity, and raw material for new products. Humans once innocently believed that by dumping waste into landfills and incinerators, they could have a clean environment. We hardly knew that we were still polluting the earth – including air, water, and soil pollution. Yet the earth is a finite place. Whether it is one hundred years or one thousand years from now, we will eventually run out of space to dump waste. Since we aren’t able to find a planet in outer space where we can ship all our waste, we had better trash our “take, make, and waste” mentality instead, and start from zero waste. #Volume 8 Issue 2#culture a
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The Taida Student Journal has been active since 1995 with an ever-changing roster of student journalists at NTU. Click the above link to read about the authors Archives
May 2024
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