Now I have lived here over 6 months and come to conclusion Taiwanese people in general ignore all rules.
Apartment I live with girlfriend, Daughter and lodger is impossible to keep clean and sensibly recycle trash.
I stayed at the apartment a number of times over 3 year period and could see they was not that hot on household cleaning, so when I moved after great effort I really got the place up to scratch, I’ve even gone as far as redecorating all but daughters bedroom, nice fresh clean paint luvly Jubly.
They don’t take the message and just carry on as before, big wind up this week, I empty general house hold waste bin do NOT replace the bag immediately come back 3 hours later rubbish of all kinds, food waste, cardboard, plastic etc has been deposited in the bin no bag.
Looking further into waste disposal for whole apartment at where all bins are for residents to empty into, seems everyone in apartment block ignores where and waste should go where, seems whatever goes into closet bin and that’s it.
rubbish plant where all trash goes must be a nightmare for those who have to separate rubbish, if they do?
i think you are inferring based on a small group of people that dont care. i can tell you of numerous times i was scolded by building management for not separating properly (e.g. having a piece of cardboard still attached to a plastic packaging)
Yeah, because you share an apartment with the entire population of Taiwan.
ETA: Anyways, I came in here thinking this was about fuckin cremation 
People get real upset if you don’t do it correctly. I got scolded for not recycling food waste in in McDonald’s once.
I find most people here take recycling quite seriously.
It depends on where you live. That’s a pretty sweeping judgment. Most foreigners posting on this site are from Taipei and are allergic to saying anything even remotely critical about Taiwan. Living in Taipei is pretty sweet, and you don’t really see the ‘dark’ side of Taiwan. If you made a chart of rule followers, you would find the most in Taipei and it would quickly decrease as you got further away from Taipei and other larger cities.
I’ve never seen it, the ones I live with don’t care that’s for sure and apartment block has a rat problem that I keep catching because they don’t seem to bother.
some is true and some is not, living in Taipei is sweeter than most, what forum complains the most about Taiwanese racism, no toilet soap or drying towels.
Following the rules does not happen, no cars or motorcycles sign, they drive straight past ignoring, riverside notice no fishing - lots do openly, no motor vehicles - see lots including cars every day. walking in cycling paths when separate sign say paths for them. These are rules not are not obeyed. sign saying pedestrians have right of way, so they walk where they want I can go on and on.
Or something darker … I was thinking Snowpiercer and what those at the back of the train ate.
I do wish some of the posts in this thread would be a bit more willing to use paragraph breaks and capital letters. It’s not as if they’re limited resources we need to conserve or recycle.
To paraphrase me sainted Ma (may she rest in peace), you can’t expect much respect for your message if you can’t be arsed to make it legible…
How should I put this?
OP, you happen to live with a bunch of slobs.
Yeah, I think that’s about right.
Maybe they’re just taking the piss.
I would
People who know they will be caught take it seriously.
The problem is the Taiwanese do do it wrong and the garbage collection people can be real jerks about things that cannot be recycled not going in the recycling.
Only certain specific things can be recycled:
- Not all plastics, for example, are recyclable. Straws and plastic utensils are too small to recycle.
- Oil-y paper (the paper you used under your 便當, a pizza box, your moss burger paper bag) is never recyclable.
- Plastic lined take-out coffee cups are rarely recyclable.
- receipts are rarely recyclable (and there’s no way to know which ones are without lab testing)
This is not big nose coming in and telling Taiwan they are wrong because big nose has a big ego.
It is the limits of the system itself. One Oil-y paper in a batch of otherwise fine paper destroys the batch. One shred of the wrong type of plastic destroys the batch too.
This is where we get into “wish-cycling” vs. “recycling”. In the US there are the 3 R’s - reduce, reuse, recycle. It’s only after you’ve exhausted the first two that you go on to the third. Taiwan ignores the first two (for the record, I’m not pretending the US doesn’t too) and just goes right to three – where you are expected to recycle anything that isn’t food, which goes into the food disposal. The honest-to-god reality is that, besides the food scraps, more than 93% of everything else is going in the landfill anyway.
That’s cuz recycling is
a) usually contaminated by oils, foods, dirt, sun damage, etc.
b) co-mingled/unsortable/not recyclable in the first place
and
c) it’s significantly cheaper to use virgin plastic than recycled plastic
Recycling is a lie and you can assume nothing you put in the recycling goes anywhere but in the ground/incinerator. If you want to do your part, bring your own containers and buy things in bulk packaging.
If you live with slobs…you’re not their housekeeper. Tell them to do their part.
I know you’d be peeing in his loafers.
With the way that Taiwan is dealing with the corona virus, I’m willing to overlook all of that.
However, once you hit the 1-2 year mark, all of that is just normal. You and others will frown upon it, but it is what it is. Chabuduo-ism at it’s best.
I wouldn’t be seen dead in Loafers.
Unlike like most Foreigners I’m not a English teacher. Retired.
Thank you for putting it straight, yes I am.
Nobody seems to notice I finished first post with this,
“'‘must be a nightmare for those who have to separate rubbish, if they do?’”
I guess “those” was ambiguous enough that I didn’t think you were talking about the people whose careers are sorting trash 
Where I live the Garbage is separated 4 ways - Food Scraps, Paper, Bottles/Cans and Garbage. In addition, there are a couple of Senior Citizens who visit each day and ‘examine’ before taking away the Paper and Bottles/Cans (there are a number of recycling businesses around here). The Seniors obviously have an influence in it as there is money in it for them. Areas without their interest no doubt suffer.
Same here and I love em! they keep it all in order, big respect.
