The Editor says: In recent years, environmental awareness in Taiwan has been on the rise. Beyond individuals voluntarily reducing their waste, the government has also begun pushing plastic-reduction policies. But changing people's established lifestyles is always a challenge — and the most common argument people make is: "As long as I throw my trash in the bin, I'm not harming the ocean." However, Ariel Wu, who works at the Ocean Foundation, lets the data do the talking, revealing the truth of the matter. The answer, it turns out, is waste reduction.
This article is adapted from Ariel Wu's Facebook page. As the Editor has previously worked at a company researching plastic pyrolysis technology, supplementary notes from the Editor are included to shed light on the current state of the industry.
I came to Penghu last October
Working on beach cleanup and marine debris projects
I visited many "secret marine debris spots" XD
This is the Penghu I've seen over the past six-plus months
Here, there are no overflowing wave-dissipating blocks or concrete seawalls
If you could Photoshop out all that trash
It would truly deserve to be called one of the world's most beautiful bays
Penghu is actually stunning 
<3
▍Further Reading: Diving Taiwan — Penghu: A Wonderful Collision of Culture, History, and Natural Landscapes, an Offshore Island Full of Surprises
Who Is Harming the Ocean Environment?
When I teach, I start by showing these photos I've taken
And ask everyone whether the beaches look like the ones they see in their daily lives
"Before we discuss who's been littering, have you ever thought about where the trash we produce every day actually goes?"
"Once you throw something in the bin, does it simply vanish from the face of the Earth?"
The ways humans currently handle waste can be broadly divided into recycling, landfill, and incineration
Recycled plastic pellets vs. shredded plastic
What Do You Think of When You Think of Recycling?
【Recycling】
Generally regarded as the gold-standard solution — the idea being that once you toss a PET bottle into the recycling bin, it gets reused and turned into a brand-new bottle, making it the perfect disposal method. But did you know?
Recycled materials cannot match the quality of virgin materials, so they can only be used to make lower-grade products — a process known as downcycling. Take Taiwan's best-recycled item, the PET bottle, as an example: due to food safety regulations, recycled material cannot be used to make new PET bottles (food packaging must use virgin material only).
Having actually visited recycling facilities, I've seen that these bales of PET bottles still need to go through manual sorting, shredding, density separation, washing, dewatering and packaging, pelletising, and more before they can become usable plastic material. The labour, water, and electricity consumed in this process represent yet another drain on the Earth's resources — not to mention the wastewater generated from washing the bottles, and whether it is discharged in compliance with regulations or illegally piped directly into rivers.
For PET bottles, which command a relatively good recycling price, the recycling system functions reasonably well. But not all officially designated recyclable materials necessarily make it into the recycling stream. If the cost of processing a material exceeds its value, items that should be recycled may end up in the incinerator instead.
Editor's note: The PET bottles we typically collect during beach cleanups and ocean cleanups are generally not accepted by standard recycling facilities. The sand and seaweed attached to them raise processing costs and can even cause machinery breakdowns, so recyclers want nothing to do with them. And by the way — PET bottle caps can't be recycled either, and neither can any PET bottle that isn't clear white!
【Landfill】
Landfill, to me, is an "out of sight, out of mind" approach — bury everything, and once you can't see it, the problem is "solved." But this trash — plastics in particular — can persist for hundreds of years. How can we guarantee that over those hundreds of years, a landfill won't be breached by a typhoon, earthquake, ageing infrastructure, or some other natural or man-made disaster, sending its contents into the sea?
Landfills in Taiwan are often located on remote coastlines
The world's first plastic was invented just over a hundred years ago, yet plastic can last 400–600 years — meaning the very first piece of plastic ever made may still be largely intact today.
What's more, plastic does not "decompose" in the natural environment — it "fragments." It keeps breaking into smaller and smaller pieces until they're invisible to the naked eye, but they never disappear. These microplastics can then re-enter the human body through the food chain.
Editor's note: Scientists call these tiny plastic fragments Microbeads. Their greatest danger is their ability to absorb lipophilic chemical compounds from seawater — such as bisphenol A (BPA) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) — which then enter the human body through the food chain. These chemicals are linked to modern civilisation's diseases, including infertility and developmental abnormalities in infants.
【Incineration】
Incineration may seem like a once-and-done solution, but waste doesn't simply disappear inside an incinerator. In addition to the air pollution that can result from insufficient furnace temperatures, the bottom ash that remains after burning creates further problems.
Penghu cannot process its own waste, so most of it must be shipped to incinerators in Kaohsiung. Beyond the considerable cost of transporting the waste, as a condition of having it accepted, Penghu must accept bottom ash from Kaohsiung at a ratio of 1
.67 — meaning for every 100 tonnes of waste we send for incineration, we must take back 167 tonnes of bottom ash. The same problem affects Kinmen, Lienchiang County, and other outlying islands.And that's not all — following a fire at a Kaohsiung recycling facility in April of this year, for the two months since, Penghu's waste has had nowhere to go, and has now accumulated to over 3,000 tonnes.
Editor's note: Taiwan's incinerators are ageing across the board. Not only is their combustion efficiency lower (the boiler walls accumulate deposits from incompletely burned plastic over time, further reducing heat transfer efficiency), they also produce more CO₂ and bottom ash per tonne burned. Yet due to public opposition, Taiwan cannot build new incinerators, and the old ones are being pushed to their limits.
As mentioned above, while PET bottles can be recycled, the labels on them cannot. These labels are also prone to causing adhesion problems inside incinerator boilers — so even when recycling facilities offer above-market rates for waste processing, incinerators are reluctant to handle them. It is reported that a recycling facility in Yunlin County has accumulated towering piles of PET bottle labels with absolutely no way to dispose of them.
Every year, 200,000,000 takeaway beverage cups are used
Every day, 8,000,000 plastic straws are used
While scientists around the world are working hard to develop various methods of plastic treatment — including biodegradation and pyrolysis-to-fuel technology — these technologies are still far from commercial-scale operation. Until then, the best way to manage waste is simply to "not produce it in the first place." Our oceans and our planet truly cannot sustain this pace and volume of waste generation any longer.
Editor's note: The heated debate this year over how to drink bubble tea while complying with plastic restrictions was ultimately sparked by human laziness. Single-use plastics are cheap but short-lived in their usefulness, yet they cause lasting damage to the planet. If technology cannot yet effectively tackle the plastic problem, having the government impose top-down restrictions on plastic use may be the most meaningful response we can offer the Earth.
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