6th syringe complete with sharp that I’ve found in 3 years. I don’t look for this stuff. Have also found many syringes without sharps, medicine viles, and one day, inexplicably, organs- I lost count around 20- livers or kidneys? Animal or human? I don’t know.
This was on a different day than 20+ organ day.
Lungs. Cow, pig, human? Lord knows.
I also found a plastic bag full of dead baby chicks the other week.
I find lots of other stuff but don’t always have a camera on me. I used to pick up a bag of trash from the beach every day but my recycling guys yelled at me. Whattaya gonna do?
Your thoughts, forumosa? Anything we can do about this?
Can see the pics, sadly.
I hate it. All the bollocks about loving Taiwan and touch your heart. The best you can do is touch a dead animals heart on a beach. It’s all about education, from how to dispose of hypodermic needles, to why dumping waste in the sea is a bad idea. There seems to be such a low standard on education in the sense of respect for others and the environment. Just seems that in Taiwan you fuck-up the land and throw shit out of sight. In another thread we have taxis in London telling people to come discover Taiwan, what a joke! People want to come see clean places and beaches need to be spotless.
When will this island wake-up and realise that not doing anything, not telling people off, not fining them, turning a blind eye, not disgracing those that do, accepting apologies is rotting the island away. Such a beautiful place with good people that are pissed on by those thugs, gangsters, idiots, wannabes, greedy, selfish people who all need a good knock on the head. Anything from smokey scooters to letting your dog shit. All needs to be caught and controlled. But nothing will happen the corrupt will win and the good will bow their head and do nothing.
This island has a long way to go. They arrogantly have forgotten that it is still a developing country because they have technology, they haven’t developed society and need to rapidly. Developing a country is so much more than buying jet planes and hospital equipment. This island could be so nice. It would only take 20-30 years to completely turn it around too.
I’m quite surprised to see Steviebike post something like that. He’s usually looking on the upside. Like … I don’t know, at least they’re not human lungs you’re finding.
I’m guessing there’s a meat packer or slaughterhouse somewhere in the vicinity, and a local government that has a don’t-ask-don’t-tell policy towards waste disposal.
I find this sort of thing especially sad because developing countries have a whole reference book called History, in which they can look back and find out exactly what happens, to whom, when you do X, Y or Z. What makes it worse is that, in Taiwan, people equate waste with development. They think being able to generate mountains of trash and leave the aircon set at 12’C is an indication that they’ve arrived. They don’t seem to grasp that it’s the exact opposite: they’re still poor, except now they’ve got money.
As for what to do … I suggest you do what others do and keep your head down. The reason they keep their heads down is that you’re likely to get knifed if you challenge those who operate and profit from the status quo.
This. I and a friend found 2 dead dogs and a dead cat on the beach at Bali. The bodies were full of maggots and each animal’s front and back legs were trussed up with plastic twine. Probably would have found a whole lot more if we had walked around a bit. I can only assume these animals were euthanased and were supposed to be incinerated, but someone had just dumped them in the sea.
mmm yeah. That sounds like the best-case scenario to me.
I was going to give Taiwan the benefit of the doubt on this one- these things could have washed across the ocean and in from anywhere. I’m not sure which currents reach teh east coast but I figure they could be from Phillipines, Vietnam, the mainland…who knows. I just wonder if we could get a bin number or something and find out which hospital was using the stuff, then find out which trash service they use, to find out who is shirking their duty in pursuit of profit (and a sure place in hell).
As far as litter is concerned, in my more ambitious moments I consider picking up a garbage bag full of trash every day and putting it on the steps of a local government authority building in the wee hours. I’ve already written letters, to which I’ve gotten very polite brush offs. (Thanks for your concern, adoga!) All we need are some public trash cans. I refuse to believe that people here are just vile pigs. I mean, a lot of my dear friends are Taiwanese and they are neither vile nor piggy. It’s just a matter of convenience. I’m sure we’d see a lot more trash on American beaches if there were not trash cans available right off the parking lot. And because we are trained to leave no trace, when it’s inconvenient, we find it unthinkable to leave the trash and end up carting it home. But if it’s ALWAYS inconvenient to get your trash off the beach, because there are never public trash cans, then people just aren’t in the habit of taking care of their trash.
The lack of public trash cans goes back to the abysmal trash collection system here.
sigh.
It’s all very sad this one. But I do think things can improve. I just wonder what the tipping point is (sorry pun not intended). Will it be too little too late? Taiwan faces many future challenges, but Taiwan policies are so short-sighted, only really dealing in political voting cycles (ok that happens everywhere). Some things need to be long term objectives agreed by all government parties and a set budget and a independent review of their work. I"m thinking a environmental body that ranges from education programmes to crack squads of armed Police to deal with the real trouble. Might sound a little silly, but would work, but only if left to do the job and be constantly monitored for corruption and those elements removed immediately. They would have to have independent power to bring convictions to court and make sure no one is capable of accepting bribery. A truly zero tolerance. Pipe dreams, but if they wan’t this island in tip-top tourist condition this needs to happen. Be money well spent IMHO. The happiness of the island would increase and a feeling of true nationality might come about.
I would definitively enlist the neighborhood’s help on this and send the pics to Apple Daily or your choice of TV station. There is something rotten and not just the dead carcasses.
This is not regular people dumping stuff at the beach, rather it is illegal dumping at sea or in watersheds, most likely by contractors, then a typhoon comes along and it gets washed up on the beach. I’m sure it is only a small minority of clinics or hospitals which would practice this.
Medical waste was found on Xiao Liu Qiu island recently and it is very likely that it washed up from mainland Taiwan.
But yeah overall things need to be tightened up hugely. My boss always said it’s easy to change the hardware but the software is the difficult part IE peoples values and behaviour.
I went to Little Liu Qiu (小琉球) and the water was consumed with garbage such that the only difference between a dump and the park was all the people. As we had to pay to get in, a bit of that money could be used to clean the place up. But that smacks Taiwanese thinking directly in the face. It’s a real shame Taiwanese society doesn’t value the environment – this island is so far from reaching it’s potential…
I believe the current is washing up garbage from recent storms onto the island.
Potentially true for the siringes but the state the organs are in seems to be more Finleys thought. The past storms and reccuring tide would wash them back on- shore after 3-5 days
If they would have been dumped in Vietnam or the Philippines , they would not submerge in this rather fresh/ mint condition. Sharks and other fish would not let go a festive meal like that.
Sad to see indeed.
You have to be really careful on the west coast. A few weeks ago I was down near Guan Yin at night, which is on the TaoYuan coast.
I came across a bag on the beach containing a white powder, some of which was strewn over the sand. It was on the debris line so it had obviously been washed up. Curious, I bent down to look at what it was and the first thing I read - in English, was: If inhaled, seek medical assistance immediately. I couldn’t make out the much of the other bits of information because I was running away.
I informed the coast guard who didn’t come to have a look and who didn’t inform any other agencies - it was around 2 am and I guess they were very busy shining big lights at boats. I keep a shovel in my car so I went back and, whilst downwind, lay some wet sand over the top of the bag and the spilt powder in an attempt to stop it from blowing around. I don’t know how high the tide was later that day, but I hope that the water came in and diluted it. I could have called the EPA, but having dealt with them before, I might as well have stuck my head in the sand and then promptly sought immediate medical attention.
New slogan for the Tourism Bureau. Taiwan: The Lungs of Asia.
It’s the people who care who get upset the most.
Many years ago, some organization (I forget if it was an NGO or the EPA) did a survey of all the main beaches around Taiwan, and found that nearly all of them were strewn with medical waste, including many syringes and hyperdermic needles. This was attributed to the standard waste disposal practice of hospitals and clinics that were too small to have their own incinerators: Nearly all of them paid contractors to take away their dangerous waste, and the contractors (surprise, surprise) just dumped it into the sea or out of sight in the mountains. The contractors were, apparently, often operated by or connected with underworld organizations, and government authorities exercised little or no control over their lucrative business.
These revelations created a bit of a stir at the time. Legislators expressed shock and concern, and government officials vowed to do something about it. But the media and public soon turned their attention elsewhere, and I doubt if anything meaningful was done beyond a token “crackdown” for a week or few.
It was enough to deter me from going to the beach for many years. I also tried, as far as possible, to limit my wild swimming to remote locations where dumping would have been impossible, there or anywhere upstream, unless they dumped from helicopters (and sometimes a shadow of worry crossed my mind that maybe, just maybe, Taipower might be doing just that with its nuclear waste, though I hastened to reassure myself that surely, even in Taiwan at its most dysfunctional, such a thing was hardly imaginable).
If you want something done here, there is no point in phoning any government organization. Apple daily. They get stuff done. At least for a few days.
Hans, that’s bloody scary. Since you’re still posting I assume it wasn’t something fatally toxic, but it easily could have been. WTF is going on when a passing waiguoren has to clean up a hazardous waste spill because every government agency who ought to be on the scene has [strike]Warcraft[/strike]more important things to deal with?
Have a read of Ed Lakewood’s book - he got inside the waste dump at Orchid island and did some impromptu interviews with the staff. They’re not actually dumping it in the sea, but they might as well. It sounds like they’ve basically just put it in those big blue barrels and stuck them in an underground warehouse: there are unconfirmed rumours (increasing levels of radioactive isotopes) that they’re leaking.
I drove past the place a couple of months ago - you’d expect it to be bristling with security, but it looks pretty much like a factory. I doubt there’s deliberate malice or skulduggery involved; just grade-1 incompetence.
I don’t think that any of us have done the research to be able to say with authority what the storage conditions on LanYu are like. And to give Taipower full kudos they invited Ed in and treated him very cordially indeed. Lanyyu is a secure location off the Taiwanese coast in a militarised zone.
All said and done of course the material should be removed somewhere else, preferably to some military establisment on an otherwise uninhabited island. Or reprocessed ideally if it can be.
[quote=“Super Hans”]You have to be really careful on the west coast. A few weeks ago I was down near Guan Yin at night, which is on the Taoyuan coast.
I came across a bag on the beach containing a white powder, some of which was strewn over the sand. It was on the debris line so it had obviously been washed up. Curious, I bent down to look at what it was and the first thing I read - in English, was: If inhaled, seek medical assistance immediately. I couldn’t make out the much of the other bits of information because I was running away.
I informed the coast guard who didn’t come to have a look and who didn’t inform any other agencies - it was around 2 am and I guess they were very busy shining big lights at boats. I keep a shovel in my car so I went back and, whilst downwind, lay some wet sand over the top of the bag and the spilt powder in an attempt to stop it from blowing around. I don’t know how high the tide was later that day, but I hope that the water came in and diluted it. I could have called the EPA, but having dealt with them before, I might as well have stuck my head in the sand and then promptly sought immediate medical attention.[/quote]
The bit in bold is actually a common statement on Material Data Sheets for powdered products. But yes of course an unknown powder on a beach could result in anything from mild irritation to letal toxicity.