Taiwan to ban PVC in food packaging starting July 2023: EPA

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-----Original Message-----
From: 看守台灣｜Taiwan Watch <con...@twwatch.online>
To: gaia-m...@lists.riseup.net
Sent: Thu, May 5, 2022 2:06 am
Subject: [GAIA] Fwd: Taiwan to ban PVC in food packaging starting July 2023: EPA

Dear colleagues:

Taiwan EPA announced a ban on PVC food packaging recently.

Please see the following report: https://focustaiwan.tw/society/202204300004

Taiwan Watch have urged the EPA to phase out all PVC products for nearly two decades, and indeed, this ban on PVC food packaging was also triggered by one of our action in 2020. In fact, PVC is not only attacked by environmentalists due to its environmental impacts, but also not welcomed by plastic recyclers since it is not stable in high temperature and use a lot amounts of plasticizers that make it more easily degraded and produce more pollutants during the melting process.

In response to the environmentalist's urge and recycler's complaints, the EPA has gradually raised the recycling fees of PVC packaging : in 2008, the recycling fee of PVC packaging (15.38 NTD /kg) was already higher than the other materials,   and it was further raised to  18.5 and 87 NTD /kg in 2012 and 2019 respectively. Therefore, it can be seen that PVC has been gradually retreated from Taiwan's plastic packaging markets except those made by manufactures who illegally evade the recycling fees.

In 2020,  in order to promote the idea of separation at source,  we cooperated with Taipei city government to set up a recyclables collection station which requires  the people who use this amenity to separate their recyclables into more than 20  items.  During the initial operation period of this collection station, we found some PVC food containers used by some well-known street food vendors. One of which is used to pack the Changhua Meatballs, which is an oily local specialty from Changhua,  a city located in  middle Taiwan. We suspected that these street food vendors didn't pay the recycling fees for their PVC containers and reported to the EPA Recycling Fund Management Board (RFMB). The executive secretary of the RFMB was surprised by this case and decided to ban on  it. And finally, after almost two years of negotiation and adminitrative procedures, the TEPA has make it come true.

Best regards,

Herlin Hsieh 
社團法人看守台灣協會|Taiwan Watch Institute
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