EPA: 4 years later ... job not done!

The EPA is probably one of the least efficient agencies in Taiwan … after 4 years they didn’t manage to clean up illegal trash … about four years ago I met with EPA officials in Sanxia and made the ‘Tour de garbage’ … showed them spots where illegal trash was dumped … they promised to clean up … right! :doh:

Is this just one location you have photographed?

Does the EPA know of this location?

Is it possible that the source is constantly dumping here?

What you have presented here could be extrapolated to cover any ‘promise’ made by a government agency.

Are you suggesting that this pile of garbage symbolizes 4 years of failure for the EPA?

Do you think the EPA in Taiwan are liars?

Do you feel there is less illegal garbage today than 4 years ago?

Was I not supposed to dump my garbage there?

T

When this were in Europe someone would have torn open bags and look for names of offenders … that’s exactly what I did 4 years ago, in presence of 5 people of the EPA … we found medicine bags with names of doctors and the patient that took the medicine … it’s a very small effort to call the doctor’s office and ask for the address of the patient …

No, this is probably a 10 year pile of garbage …

Yeah, I am sick of the fucking EPA myself. They’ll do minor things in Taipei but for any serious matter they are useless.

Ugh, that dumping. It ruins all the good feelings I have about living here everytime I see shit like that. And it’s sadly too often.

Can that pile be seen from a car or scooter traveling on the road? or is it something just out of sight that a ped or a bicyclist would notice?

What is the concrete at the bottom of the hill?

what is the geological coordinates of this site?

T

[quote=“achdizzy1099”]Can that pile be seen from a car or scooter traveling on the road? or is it something just out of sight that a ped or a bicyclist would notice?

What is the concrete at the bottom of the hill?

what is the geological coordinates of this site?

T[/quote]

Does it matter? You need coordinates to do what … beam it up, Scotty? :whistle:

Google earth … illegal garbage dump lat=24.9094437125, lon=121.404653165
Visible from space … :doh:

[quote=“Belgian Pie”]Google earth … illegal garbage dump lat=24.9094437125, lon=121.404653165
Visible from space … :doh:[/quote]

Maybe myself or others want to go there and see for themselves. maybe you should document all garbage heaps you find and get more people (albeit foreigners) outraged. I live in the middle of Taipei and when I go for a mountain scoot I never see garbage heaps, so I have no idea what your talking about other than the picture. It looks terrible, I’d like to know exactly where it is. I’d like to know where more are.

I personally like to pester my Taiwanese friends about issues I see important. If I know of a problem, I will constantly work it into a conversation and try to get them thinking about these things. Whether it’s garbage, road safety, animal rights, workers rights, anything that could make Taiwan a better place. This is how change is made.

Clearly you are outraged at the situation, you have made extensive efforts to fix the problem (meeting with the EPA), it hasn’t been done. If I were master of propaganda, I’d first gather all of your facts, find some taiwanese friends with kids who share in your concern, give Apple Daily a ring and manufacture a photo shoot with children and garbage under the headline of ‘EPA Takes No Action: Promises Broken’. This is what activists do to make change. You could even post the pictures to Forumosa if another media outlet does not bite.

Everyone hates garbage, not everyone likes to ruffle feathers. :2cents:

T

When we did our run from Wulai to Sanxia, we saw heaps of rubbish in that area dumped into the riveside-and we also told you about it BP, when chatting at your cafe. It’s disgraceful.

I think this is the place:
maps.google.com/maps?q=sanxia&ie … 8.89,1,13

What happens is following I guess … local doesn’t want to pay for disposal, drives up the mountain and dumps it ‘out of sight’ which in Taiwan means, it’s gone forever …

Local is to busy or it’s too ‘mafan’ to take it out and wait for the garbage truck, when going to work in the morning he/she takes the trash and just dumps it ‘out of sight’ … so it’s gone for ever without to be too ‘mafan’.

Local has an office somewhere but it’s too ‘mafan’ to wait for the garbage truck, takes it home and dumps ‘out of sight’, so it’s gone for good …

Local trash collector collects trash, weeds out the valuables and throws away the useless trash … because it’s too ‘mafan’ to get a license to dump it at a legal dump site he just dumps it ‘out of sight’ believing it’s gone for good …

:ohreally: :fume:

I have a small deliver delivery-truck that I have to park on the street in Tian Mou. Once a while, some assholes dump their garbage bags onto the truck’s loading area (it’s easy, it only has a loose canvas).

Once I did find a medicine-subscription in it a garbage bag: I brought it to the police station (incl. the garbage bag) and told them to take action. They informed EPA accordingly. 6 hours later someone from EPA called me and explained that they found the violator and that he would get fined “a few thousand NT$”

No idea if EPA just told me to shut up and leave them alone - at least it made me feel better and after all: I got rid of the garbage bag at the police station…

I can proudly say we were able to get the EPA to take action. It took a number of angry calls, but we apparently squeaked enough to get the grease.

The problem we reported was this: some corksoaker in the neighborhood had a mound of burnt trash on the road in front his house. When the garbage truck comes to accept our trash, this guy would be too busy soaking cork in his house to be bothered. So, at night and on the weekends, when we’re trying to relax in my room on the 3rd floor, We’d be subjected to acrid smoke from his fucking garbage pile. After about a year of this, we finally called the EPA . First couple times, nothing much happened. We followed up and were told they didn’t see anything burning when they came out. Fine, we said, come right now and you can’t miss it. They came about 4 hours later and later said they found the garbage pile and took pictures, but since they didn’t catch the corksoaker in the act of burning the garbage, their hands are tied. We said this is unacceptable and asked to speak to a supervisor. They said he wasn’t there, so we demanded his phone number. They said they don’t know it; they didn’t have a way to contact the supervisor. They suggested we look it up on the internet. We hung up in disgust.

The next time, we called and told them since they’d never come in time to catch the corksoaker in the act, why not just remove the burnt garbage pile? They said they don’t the the authority, but we pointed out that it’s on the side of a public road. Reluctantly, they said they’d call the sanitation department to clear it. We didn’t have much hope that any such call would actually be made. We decided we’d just buy a heavy duty air cleaner for our room.

About a month later, we returned home one night and found the garbage pile was gone! The corksoaker at first tried to start another one, but it would always get cleared away so he finally knocked it off.

The lesson from our experience is you have to wear them down. Their job probably pays the same no matter how many hidden garbage dumps they clear away, but if you keep following up and demanding action, they just might actually perform their job, if only to get you off their back.

Good luck!