Uni-President leading source of branded plastic waste in Taiwan's rivers: Greenpeace

Taipei, Nov. 14 (CNA) Around 90 percent of garbage in Taiwan's rivers is plastic, and nearly 20 percent of waste identifiable by brand originated from Taiwanese company Uni-President Enterprises Corp. products, according to Greenpeace.

Greenpeace East Asia Taipei conducted a "plastic brand audit" of waste in the Tamsui River and Zengwen River this year, the environmental activist organization said at a news conference held in Taipei last week.

Trash was collected manually from the rivers, then counted and analyzed, to identify which brands contributed most to the freshwater trash problem, the group said.

According to a Greenpeace statement, the biggest source of identifiable branded plastic waste -- accounting for 19.3 percent of the total -- came from Uni-President Enterprises, Taiwan's largest beverage manufacturer that produces brands including King of Tea (茶裏王), Mine Shine (麥香) and Pure Tea (純喫茶).

The Tainan-based corporation also operates 7-Eleven, the largest convenience store chain in the country with nearly 7,000 stores, the statement said.

Accounting for 7.5 percent, the second biggest producer of identifiable branded plastic waste found by the Greenpeace activists and volunteers was Taichung-based Vitalon Foods Company, which produces Royal Tea Garden Tea (御茶園), the leading brand of "high quality tea beverage in Taiwan," according to Vitalon's website.

In third place, international brand Swire Coca-Cola Limited was found to be the source of 5.4 percent of all identifiable branded plastic waste collected in the Greenpeace survey in Taiwan.

According to Greenpeace, the most commonly found trash items in Taiwan's rivers were PET bottles (34.8%), followed by polystyrene and other plastic packaging materials (17.5%), and single-use food packaging and utensils (16.4%).

"The example of PET bottles shows that relying solely on end-stage recycling is insufficient to solve plastic pollution," said Tina Chang (張道庭), a volunteer who collected trash from the Zengwen River that flows through Chiayi County and Tainan City in the southwestern part of the country.

"Fast-moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) brands must reduce plastic production from the source by shifting to reusable systems to address the plastic crisis," she said.

The action in Taiwan was part of a larger coordinated survey conducted by Greenpeace East Asia's branches in Taipei, Seoul and Hong Kong.

In total, more than 300 volunteers and activists participated in the surveys that focused on "ecologically valuable and representative rivers," Greenpeace said, examining a total of 31,250 pieces of waste, of which 28,481 (91%) were plastic.

Uni-President Enterprises, Vitalon Foods Company and Swire Coca-Cola Limited (Taiwan) did not respond to email and phone call requests for comment.