The music arrives first: a tinny version of the Polish classic 鈥淎 Maiden鈥檚 Prayer,鈥� followed by two canary-yellow garbage trucks, then two open-bed recycling trucks. As the caravan pulls into the residential square, people scurry forward lugging bags and buckets, grocery carts and flatbed carts, all filled with trash.
Yeh Yu-hsuan zooms up on his scooter to toss a bag into the garbage truck labeled 鈥淕eneral Refuse.鈥� Vegetable leaves get dumped into a blue recycling can for raw food waste. (Red cans are for cooked.) Other receptacles welcome plastic containers, glass and metal, and florescent bulbs. It being Monday, the second garbage truck has hung a sign for paper.
Mr. Yeh, a 25-year-old engineer, says he doesn鈥檛 mind the complexity of his nightly trip here. 鈥淲e just finished dinner, and I can usually fit it all on my scooter,鈥� he says.
Once dubbed Garbage Island, Taiwan has emerged as an international poster child for recycling, boasting a recycling rate of 55% in 2015, according to Taiwan鈥檚 Environmental Protection Administration (EPA). That puts this densely populated island of 23.5 million on par with international leaders like Austria, Germany and South Korea. That rate is also far above the 35% rate attributed to the U.S. by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.
But with landfill sites set to reach capacity within six years and real estate scarce and pricey, the issue has taken on additional urgency. 鈥淐ircular economy鈥濃�攁 policy that promotes optimal usage of resources鈥攈as emerged as the new buzzword. The incoming administration led by the Democratic Progressive Party has pledged to intensify pro-environmental policies.
Taiwan relies on a comprehensive strategy that harnesses its long-serving musical garbage trucks, along with pay-as-you-go trash bags, black-haired pigs and neighborhood snitches.
鈥淭o make the policy work, you have to make it convenient for people. You need incentives and you need penalties,鈥� says Wu Sheng-chung, director-general of the EPA鈥檚 waste management department.
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