Recycle in TW and Canada

choi

Zachary Fillingham, Taiwan’s Recycling Revolution: Lessons for Canada. Geopolitical Monitor, May 27, 2013.
http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.c ... ns-for-canada-4816/

Quote:

" Taiwan is a mountainous island roughly the size of the Netherlands, with most of its 23 million people packed into five coastal cities. Canada’s population of 35 million inhabits the second-largest country in the world

"The Taiwanese Environmental Protection Agency (TEPA) responded to mounting political pressure by drafting up a plan to build 21 large incinerators throughout Taiwan in 1990, and an additional 15 in 1996. * * * The government[, facing vigorous protests,] finally relented in 2003 and adopted a ‘zero waste policy’ as the central tenet of its waste reduction strategy. Ten years later, of the 26 large-capacity incinerators that were actually built, 2 of them are currently offline due to grassroots legal challenges and the remaining 24 are operating at around 72% total capacity. There’s just not enough trash for them to burn.

"Since the plan ['4-in-1’ recycling program] was first implemented in 1997, daily waste has been reduced from 1.14 kg/person in 1997 to 0.4 kg/person in 2011. By way of contrast, the average Canadian citizen produced 2.1 kg/person of daily waste in 2009. That’s a big difference.

"But Taiwan’s success wasn’t built on PAYT [“Pay-as-You-Throw”] programs alone. There’s another part to the story, albeit one that is anathema to certain reaches of the Canadian political spectrum. The foundation of Taiwan’s 4-in-1 Program is a national recycling fund that is directly financed by manufacturers and importers seeking to do business in Taiwan. The logic used to determine the fees they pay is deceptively simple: manufacturers must pay the difference between the cost of collecting and recycling their product, and the revenues generated by selling any recovered resources. However, the actual calculations can be quite complex since they also take into account externalities and associated environmental cleanup costs. Taiwan’s recycling fund is an example of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) in action, because producers in Taiwan are financially on the hook for the recyclability of their products. Producers also have an economic incentive to innovate, because if they ‘go green’ they can pay lower fees and offer a more affordable product.

“the fetid peaks of Neihu’s garbage mountain [until a decade ago] have eroded to the point that now there is a city park where an environmental abomination once stood

Note:
(a) The article comes to my attention only due to a belated report from Taiwan:

Zoe Wei and Scully Hsiao, Canadian publication lauds Taiwan's recycling program. Central News Agency, Sept 6, 2013.
(b) About.  Geopolitical Monitor (Toronto), undated
www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/about/
("Geopoliticalmonitor.com is a Canadian intelligence publication and consultancy")
(c) There is no need to read the rest of the Geopoliticalmonitor.com article.
(d) list of countries and dependencies by area
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lis ... ependencies_by_area
(total area: Russia > Canada> China> US> Brazil; land area: Russia> China> Canada> US> Brazil)

The difference between "total area" and "land area"--and ranking order of Canada and China--is "water area," which the Wiki page defines as "Water area: is the sum of the surfaces of all inland water bodies, such as lakes, reservoirs, or rivers, as delimited by international boundaries and/or coastlines. Territorial waters and Exclusive Economic Zones are not included. Some entries may also include coastal waters, depending on source, notably on CIA sources."

In a nutshell, Canada has more water resources than China.
(e) Nanaimo
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanaimo
(a city on Vancouver Island in British Columbia)
(f) For pay as you throw, see pay-as-you-go tax
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-as-you-go_tax

(g)
(i) Extended Producer Responsibility
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extended_producer_responsibility
(section 3 Electronics: In the United States, most producer responsibility laws in effect have been passed at the state level, due to unique political circumstances at the federal level. Twenty-five states have already passed laws requiring producer responsibility)
(ii) Extended Producer Responsibility State Laws as of August, 2013. Product Stewardship Institute.
productstewardship.us/displaycomm
(Massachusetts[:] automobile switches: An Act Relative to Mercury Management (2006))

Though Massachusetts does have can/bottle-recycling law (5 cents a pop), manufacturers do not finance the program. Instead a consumer pay it when checking out at a supermarket. Many consumers (about 30%) choose to throw away, rather than redeem it (to take the money back). For lack of state law of Extended Producer Responsibility on electronics (and everything else, such as furniture, refrigerator and television), consumers just dump them on the curb while city and trash hauler refuse to take them; state government (legislators and governors), particularly Republicans, deem a form of tax most schemes that will increase costs.

(h) Neihu  台北市 內湖區
(i) 歷史沿革. 臺北市內湖區公所, undated
www.nhdo.taipei.gov.tw/ct.asp?xI ... =3733&mp=124051
(“內湖區之「內湖」名稱，始見於清乾隆13年（西元1748年）古契文「立給佃批」中的「內湖庄」，因其境內多山丘，形成多處小盆地地貌，當地漳州籍人閩南語稱盆地為「湖」，故內湖是「內部盆地」之義”)
(ii) 陳慰慈, 開挖7年…內湖垃圾山 9月變身親水公園. Liberty Times, Feb 20, 2013.
www.libertytimes.com.tw/2013/new/feb/20/today-taipei7.htm
(iii) 葫洲里垃圾掩埋場zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/葫洲里垃圾掩埋場
(別名內湖垃圾山; 1970-1985)
(iv) shinsui 親水 【しんすい】 (adj[; n) (ant[onym]: 疎水): “hydrophilic”

I did not see this term while in Taiwan. There are a couple of park in Taiwan of this name, but at least a hundred in Japan, a fact that suggests 親水 and 親水公園 come from Japan.