Yunlin touts success in waste reduction -- by searching people's trash bags

Taipei, Jan. 13 (CNA) The Yunlin County government on Monday said it had reduced the county's overall trash volume by 7 percent after implementing a policy of searching people's garbage bags and rejecting them if they contain recyclables or food scraps.

In a statement, Zhang Qiao-wei (張喬維), director of the Yunlin Environmental Protection Bureau, said Yunlin's waste output had risen during the COVID-19 pandemic to around 400 metric tons per day.

The increase appeared to be driven by changes in consumer behaviors, such as a rise in packaging waste from online shopping, as well as a failure to separate recycling and trash, Zhang said.

To reverse this trend, the Yunlin County government adopted a policy last March instructing waste management workers to search some residents' trash bags and refuse those that contained food scraps and other recyclable materials, Zhang said.

Since implementing the policy, waste disposal workers have broken open about 100,000 garbage bags, almost 20,000 of which were rejected because they contained recyclables like paper products and food scraps, Zhang said.

In addition, 61 garbage trucks containing about 1,000 metric tons of trash were also rejected when they went to unload because inspectors found that they contained garbage that was not properly sorted, Zhang said.

Zhang did not specify how the county dealt with these rejected garbage truck loads, but in a July 2024 Facebook post, Yunlin's Taixi Township Office said the responsible waste disposal crew is made to sort the garbage by hand.

Changhua County, to the north of Yunlin, has a similar policy.

Teng Ya-chen (鄧雅謓), head of the bureau's Waste Management Division, said Yunlin's monthly trash volume last November was 1,200 metric tons lower than in July, equivalent to around 7 percent less trash per day.

Currently, the county generates 360 metric tons of trash per day, which it hopes, with continued enforcement, to reduce to 340 metric tons by the end of this year, the bureau said.

In the statement, the bureau noted that Yunlin County does not have a waste incineration plant, and previously had to rely on other cities and counties to help with its waste disposal.

In recent years, however, the county has adopted a "zero waste" approach and has also begun producing solid recovered fuels, or refuse-derived fuels, from recovered waste, the bureau said.

Of the remaining garbage, some is sent for incineration at the Mailiao Refinery, while the rest is sent to six local landfills, the bureau said.

With the county now largely self-sufficient in waste disposal, it aims to gradually remove and process the waste in its landfills, until the landfills themselves can be closed and used for other purposes, the bureau said.