You didn’t know? In addition to the highly advanced notification the trash truck emits when it comes around, Taiwan also has the technology to deal with anything that is even believed to be recyclable. Soiled by food? Doesn’t matter.
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I’m not sure if being sarcastic, anyway the majority of plastics get incinerated I’m pretty sure.
Wasn’t there an article about someone putting a gps tracker in the recycling and found that it just ended up at an incineration place?
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I wonder what happens to the separated stuff in McDonalds or fast food chains here.
Odds on they just chuck it together and burn it all.
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I’m pretty sure there have also been multiple news stories showing the sorted plastics sitting in piles in the sun (breaking down into micro plastics and having the UV radiation make it impossible to even use said plastic…)
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If you glance inside or watch someone take the trash out, there’s a 99.9% change of everything going into the same bag
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Electronics industry hopefully is doing better, need to start eliminating polystyrene. I noticed strong movement away from polystyrene and plastic packaging in europe already.
They don’t crush the tins or plastic containers, I’ve seen some throw 5 litre plastic containers in non flattened.
I know the trucks have a crusher built in, they can’t work that well.
Council I had in U.K. wouldn’t take tins or plastic if not crushed, trucks there have crushing mechanisms.
They’re welcome to “recover” all the resources they want. The reality is that less than 3% of said recovered resources are ever used again. So they can even aim for 100% “resource recovery”, but until they actually make 100% of those “recovered resources” into something usable (we only need so many composite plastic park benches!), recovering the resources is a waste of human labor and a very good form of greenwashing.
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Those who don’t buy the special bags has the waste removal charge in their water bill. It’s never free.
I mean in Canada
Vancouver has had them for years, Ottawa still doesn’t. I wouldn’t be surprised if 99% of Canadian trucks were still manual loaders
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I think Taiwan (/Taipei) incinerates something like 97% of it. I remember reading it on the English website of the incineration plant in Muzha or Beitou or somewhere (fascinating read if you’ve got the time, and fascinating that the government bothers (i) having a website for the incineration plant, and (ii) translating it into English).
I don’t remember whether that’s just blue bag waste or everything that’s collected, but I believe you’re right that most of the stuff collected for recycling is just wishcycling because it can’t be dealt with efficiently.
Thanks ! I saw a video on that essay from academy of ideas it really resonated with me. I love Schopenhauer. Going to give this a thorough read.
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No doubt they are deaf and have some form of hearing loss. I know curb side is not feasible however I think residential apartments is.
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There are solutions to get around that. Like tamper proof bins that are air tight so rats/roaches cant get into them. That is what NYC uses. I also think Taiwan government should do something about pest control. I know in NYC there have been proposals of using genetic engineered rats and releasing them into the wild to mate with the normal population and there offspring is infertile or something along the lines of that. Would be nice if they did that with roaches/rats. I’m not sure if they serve any purpose on the food chain here or if it could have unintended consequence’s but I think overall it would be good.
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I remember back in the day 30 years ago in Taipei you put your trash in a specific spot and left it there, did not have to stay there. The truck came and picked it up. No musical trucks. But of course people would put it there too early and after truck left. Then you had the rats and roaches! I think it was around 1995 during Chen Shui Bian time as mayor they changed to current arrangement with the musical truck at a certain time. Ma Ying Jiou first term as mayor (around year 2000) they started the separation with special bags for trash.
It is too bad they do not have once a week curbside pickup. But then you need proper trash bins for each house or complex. I do not think most Taiwanese would like it
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It’s CNY, no one is expected to be in deep and intellectual pondering. It can get worse, like 14 days of constant, day/night firecrackers going off.
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thats why im advocating for a government sanctioned notification app on your smart phone in lieu of these “garbage” noises, no pun intended, but these noises are noise pollutants. or at least change the tunes to something less ear piercing. maybe a tune from adele