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The problem of Industrial Pollution in Taiwan

However, as pointed out by legislator Ke Chien-ming, this event at the Hsin-chu Science-based Industrial Park was just a microcosm of Taiwan's industrial policy failure. He urged that the development of high-tech industry should also take into consideration environmental protection, and not just for seeking profit. (Chung-shih wan-pao, 1997/10/30/6; 1997/10/3/13; 1997/11/02/11;1997/11/07/6; 1997/11/09/4; Taiwan jih-pao, 1997/12/06/23) In July 1998 the EPA reported that improvement measures had been taken at the Hsinchu Science-based Industrial Park and a special group was organized to assist and supervise wastewater control. (http://www.epa.gov.tw.news/gn870728.htm)

     It is notable that the IDB had entrusted the Industrial Pollution Center (IPCC), established in October 1983, to provide technical and extension services to assist industries in improving pollution prevention and control. So far, the IPCC has conducted detailed studies on the situation of wastewater control in 13 industries and the results are summarized in Table 2 to demonstrate current situation.

     Table 2 reveals some notable facts. In terms of the amount of wastewater produced per day, paper, dyeing and finishing, electroplate and leather industries ranked at the top. Factories of these four industries are mostly small- and medium-sized with a capital below NT$60 million; the ratio of the total cost over the volume of business is also larger than that of large-scale industries.

As a high-tech industry, semiconductor manufacturing produced more than 30,000m3 (* superscript) of wastewater per day, comparable to the amount of the leather industry; but its ratio of cost over volume of business is much smaller. In terms according to the Effluent Standard set by the EPA, most factories qualified for the 1993 standard, while the opposite was true for the 1998 standard except for the power plants. It is notable that the electroplate industry had the smallest percentage (65 percent) of factories accorded the 1993 standard, but it still had 60 percent hat accorded with the 1998 standard, next only to power plants (88 percent) and motorcycle manufacturing (67 percent).

     An overall view of industrial wastewater control may be seen in the EPA statistics as shown in Table 3. It is clear that the number of enterprise units brought under controlled was usually below 10,000 in the 1980s and around 15,000 in the 1990s. On average, the time of inspection per unit was usually less than 2 per year, except for 1989-1992 when it was around 3. Figure 3 shows four curves. The first curve is the percentage of units improved;



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