thanks for the help on this. Im not trying to give credit to Aus or the west. I dont really like Aus thats why i came here but it annoys me how a country like taiwan thats came so far in everything still allows this to happen.
Canada sewers leaking aswell? damn but yea in Sydney there are some suburbs where the sewer pipes run off the cliff lol and apparently all sorts of flushed products end upnat the beach at certain times.
Would love to see pictures
I see these in the street out the front of some buildings. Are these the entrance to the septic tank? Because in the west stuff like this is usually a cleanout point so i guess here its either that or septic sytem?
not sure if this topic is still active but…
My concern is mainly about the drains seen in the streets of most cities in Taiwan and the foul smell.
When you walk along the footpath you see one set of drains with perforated grates along the edge of the roadway every 3-4 metres These are obviously for stormwater.
Then along the footpath under your feet there is a second set looking similar. From this second set emanates the tell-tale odour of Hydrogen sulfide, rotten egg gas. Clearly this second drain carries sewage of some description which has partially decomposed. The smell disappears for a day or so after rain, but soon reappears.
Hydrogen Sulfide is an objectionable gas, but allowed to accumulate to high concentrations it is noxious and can be fatal. At high concentrations your nose can no longer detect the smell but at that level the gas is noxious. It can cause all sorts of health complaints.
From the look of things the smell could easily be eliminated by replacing the perforated lids with sealed lids. It would be simple and inexpensive.
So my question is why the Taiwan government (apparently) takes no action to eliminate the horrible smell in city streets ? Why is the horrible smell tolerated by the people.?
Some households / “restaurants” discard their food waste in those. They are not supposed to do that.
That is true, but on objective measures, Taiwan stands with its first world counterparts.
Flooding.
The drains operate as flood channels here during typhoons and periods of heavy rain . That is why you see so many perforated metal covers.
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I’d rather smell it than deal with this:
Wow. We are so developed in Canada. I’ve never seen a flood in Taiwan despite getting 10x the rain.
Pinnacle of development.
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They used to be really bad and quite frequent but Taiwan literally spent a fortune on flood control that now works quite reliably in most locations .
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And it’s paid off. It’s almost like we’re a developed country! They took a problem with money they had and solved it, increasing living standards for the people.
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Hehe, this conversation go cute quick.
To @bp-kaohsiung question. You are viewing things in different ways. As mentioned, flooding is a huge problem. Hence more.
There are many burried random.scary things underground in taiwan. We may b a new country, but we are a rich country that had money for the last half century. Thus greed. Thus corruption. See Kaohsiung pipe explosion a few years ago if i dont sound believable.
Goig forwards, underground.wires, more pipes, mrts, more drainage eystems etc its a fuxing.mess. and yes it is the govenrments fault. As it is nearly everywhere.
In my opinion the government should adress theae issues, in this order.
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Random explosions cajsed by massive chemical piping underground.
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The same, but above ground.
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The same as 1 and 2, but leaking, not just exploding.
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The same as 1, 2 and 3, but outlet locations and.delings instead of.rivers and oceans.
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Same as 1, 2, 3 and 4, but the corruption involved with governments and rich assholes. Kind of how a previous president sent certain industries, such as dyeing, south and abroad instead of in Taipei. A half assed effort in a semi proper direction.
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Connect buildings to waste infrastructure. This is actually happening a lot these years, to be fair.
6.1 connected building infrastructure doesnt dump into rivers and oceans.
- Harshly penalize factories dumping illegally during times of “can get away with it”…aka torrential rains. Literally close the business rather than.just jail which is insanely easy to pass off onto a dieing cancer employee.
7.1 do not renew/accept new business registrations by people in said companies found to be involved with above.
- Accept going broke because everything you and I enjoy are made from the blood and tears of virgin children and puppies.
Real change will only come in the form of market. Dont buy it, it wont be made. To clean up things, it will take a couple generations. to point fingers at governments whilst still buying garbage everyday, will take infinity.
Even on tiny scales, like a restaraunt or a street of them. If all they hear nd see all day is people saying it stinks, dont want o eat and they run.away with their nose covered…within a year or 2, that ditch is transformed. Meanwhile people play ostritch, buy their shitty devices nd continue to pay such situations…effectively doing nothing but proving them right that it doesnt matter.
Voice your concern with the government, but dont go home at night with a belly full of.mcdinalds or nightmarket stuff and watch tv and pretend you accompliahed any kind of positive advancement 
we all are responsible for causing this, and by proxy are all responsible for fixing it.
I could wish. I’m a foreigner in a strange land with no vote, and not wishing to rock any boats and get chucked out. My one job is to learn the language enough to survive. But just walking down the street is enough to make me puke.
I’m in Kaohsiung but its the same in most if the major cities. The government talks about wanting to attract more foreign tourists, (after covid) but if they knew about the smell they would stay away. I’ve been to a few Asian places but none of them this bad. Hence my original question.
Thanks all for your responses.
Cheers
If it’s particularly bad in a certain spot, it might be worth letting the EPA know?
It’s often worse in South East Asia. That said you have a point for sure. Some areas stink like hell most of the rivers still have sewers and industrial effluent running straight into them. The industrial pollution makes things even worse here.
Yeah. Its hard to pinpoint a spot though. Pretty much all of the commercial areas in Sanmin district near the Love River xxopen sewerxx drain. Funnily enough, said open sewer does not seem to stink noticeably but the street drains do, and the love river drain has water continually gushing into it from drains on Minzu 1st Road.
And people have no problem letting their kids play in the mud banks along the DanShui shore.
Didnt Mr. Korea fix all of this and bring in millions of international tourists? All the while still having time in his busy day to persobally erect new street lights.
I know this may not seem like much to you, but it is seriously WAY better in Kaohsiung now, and does keep improving. Once they demolish mordor in the south and build schools over its ashes, ktown wont be so bad. The culture here likely wont ever allow a city to become something from a sparkling northern euro country, the ideals are far too different. A favourite snack is intentionally made to smell like diarrhea soaked in vomit. Different strokes for different folks
Nice one 
Crossing the bridge from Donggang into Linyuan is very much Mordor.
When I got back to America in 2014, it was raining in Los Angeles. They said it would be about 8 inches of rain and talked about flash flood and all that doomsday scenario. I thought not much of it because Taiwan gets at least 1 meter of rain during a typhoon easily! But it was really bad rain and it was even flooding a bit, so I guess in America 8 inches of rain was considered pretty bad.
So when Hurricane Harvey was dumping 39+ inches of rain, you know it’s Biblical.
There are huge advantages in living on an island with more less a single spine of a mountain range. We flood, for sure, but when the rains stop it tends to go away pretty quick, even before the amazing advances in big ditch digging we now enjoy.
Be nice if the gov with all them subcontracted machines started digging some water reservoirs before we are in the middle of a water war…already almost there. Next year will be interesting if this years weather returns. Farmers will be begging for sewage to be channelled their way.
I wonder what could be done with waste water streams that normally get dumped and somehow used in mass factory production. Those guys are going to start suffering in taiwan soon too. I am surprised big players even bother with taiwan given the dire future of water security.