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(Unsplash, yee yek photo) (Unsplash, yee yek photo) Cupstock Paper
TAIPEI (Taiwan News) — Activists caution that Taipei’s upcoming ban on plastic cups at beverage shops may create new recycling woes in the future.
Taipei is leading the country in banning the use of plastic cups at about 2,206 beverage stores starting in December in a bid to reduce single-use plastic. Businesses are likely to turn to paper cups as an alternative, which worries environmentalists.
Most paper cups come with PE coating, a thin plastic film, which makes recycling time-and-labor-consuming, said Herlin Hsieh (謝和霖), secretary-general of the Taiwan Watch Institute, an environmental group. Such containers often end up in garbage incinerators as people wrongly place them in the bins meant for paper recycling, he added.
There is also the issue of inadequate capacity for separating paper from plastic. Taiwan has but one plant, which is in Miaoli, that is dedicated to the treatment of used PE-coated cups, the Environmental Information Center quoted Hsieh as saying.
Taipei’s Department of Environmental Protection has said Taiwan has mature technologies and sufficient capacity for handling PE-coated paper cups, per CNA. The policy is in line with the central government’s objective to phase out single-use plastic cups, with municipalities asked to submit a plan by 2024.
According to Hsieh, while plant-fiber cups present another alternative, more often than not they are coated with per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), a kind of long-lasting chemical that breaks down very slowly. Taiwan has yet to regulate the use of the substance on vegetable-fiber containers, which is both an environmental and a health hazard that needs to be addressed, he warned.
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