We have all heard about lawyers chasing ambulances, but here in Taipei, lawyers and just about everyone else have developed a new pastime: Chasing the garbage truck, almost every night of the week.
Every day, except Sundays and Wednesdays, a truck will pass your neighborhood between 4 p.m. and 10 p.m., at precisely what time is something you have to find out. Then you have to wait for the truck to pass and collect your trash, which you have already packed into a special bag certified by the Taipei City Government.
The truck doesn’t wait for you.
“Every night, you see people chasing the garbage truck,” says Sherry, a Taipei resident.
“Some even chase the truck on scooters, with the trash bag on board.”
If you miss the collection, you have to take the bag yourself to one of the few designated garbage collection centers in the city that operate 24-hours a day.
Such scenes are the result of the Taipei City government’s Per-Bag Trash Collection Fee policy that seeks to promote active public participation in managing household waste using the carrot and stick approach.
Under the policy, you may only use special bags that are available for NT$5 each (15 US cents) at convenient stores. However, you do need to purchase the bags to handover loose recyclable items like plastic, paper and bottles.
Hence, there is an economic incentive to recycle. As the official motto goes, “throw less, pay less, recycle more and save more”.
The program, introduced in 1999, was so successful in its first three years that the city government has brought forward its target of achieving “Total Recycling, Zero Landfill” to 2010, from its original target date of 2020.
“We’re on course,” Lu Shyh-Chang, senior engineer at the Department of Environmental Protection of the city government, says when asked about the new deadline.
The figures are almost beyond belief. In 1999, waste volume averaged 1.12 kilograms per person per day. Now, that figure is less than 0.39 kilograms.
Household waste volume has fallen 65 percent and the total recycling ratio has risen from 2.4 percent to 44.7 percent.
Residents have also been enjoying vastly reduced trash collection fees, which have shrunk to NT$40 per household per month from NT$144 in 1999.
“Public participation is crucial in managing waste,” Lu says.
The biggest payoffs for the 2.63 million Taipei residents however is not in the amount of money they save, which is considerable, but rather enjoying a much cleaner city.
The closure of the last landfill in Taipei next year will be symbolic of the success of the policy. Credit goes to the people.
Asked if this success can be replicated in other cities (Jakarta springs to mind), Lu says the policy is about changing people’s behavior through the use of rewards and punishments, preferably the former.
Public education is an important part of the package, he says. “When we launched our campaign, we started with children in schools, and they in turn convinced parents at home to recycle and sort garbage.”
The Taipei media have been critical even though they are often caught in the politics of the city, says William Lee, a researcher at the department.
“But they are an important part of the public education process and have been mostly supportive,”
he adds.
On the punishment side, the department last year issued 7,735 tickets to those who didn’t use certified bags to carry out their trash, an impressively low number given that 200,000 bags are collected on a
daily basis.
The penalties range from NT$1,200 to $6,000 depending on the offense. Residents are also encouraged to report violators via a hotline, and they receive reward points for this service.
A quick visit to the Muzha refuse incineration plant highlights the switch Taipei has made in treating it’s huge quantity of waste, from the use of landfills to recycling and incinerating.
The plant is built next to a landfill that has now been closed down and restored its function as a huge green park. The park is full at weekends with bikers and people flying aircraft and helicopters models.
An ugly structure overlooking Taipei’s zoo in the hilly Muzha district, the incinerator’s high tower, is painted so that it looks like the neck of a giraffe.
It may still be an eyesore against the lush green hills, but it is one of the symbols of Taipei’s successful waste management policy.
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