Management and Performance of Taiwan’s Waste Recycling Fund

Abstract

Taiwan's resource recycling program was formally established in 1989, starting with the mandatory recycling of polyethylene terephthalate bottles. The number of mandatory regulated materials was extended to 8 categories with 27 items by 2002. Because of false data reporting, financial scandal, lack of transparency of the system, and the demand from parliament, the recycling policy has gradually changed from entirely privatized to being nationalized. Currently, the structure is built on six main bodies: fund management committee, consumers, industries responsible, recyclers, fee reviewing committee, and auditing agents. The industries that are responsible submit a fee, which is set by the fee reviewing committee, to the waste recycling fund (WRF), which is operated by the fund management committee. The auditing agents routinely check the responsible industries by documentation review as well as on-site counting to ensure that the fee is correctly submitted. The WRF provides initiatives to collect and dispose of the end-of-life products. The fund is split into a trust fund and a nonbusiness fund to deal with the collection, disposal, and treatment of the listed materials. The latter deals with the supporting works and ensures that the system runs effectively. The ratio of trust fund to nonbusiness fund is 80 -20%. It is no doubt that the current practice achieves some improvements. Household waste has been reduced by 22%. And, most importantly, the benefit-to-cost ratio was as high as 1.24. However, similar to other state-owned systems, the resource recycling program has been criticized for false reporting from the responsible industries, a rigid system, and complicated procedures. To build a sustainable enterprise, the recycling program should be privatized as the recycling market and operating procedures are well established and fully mature.

Moving towards sustainable end-of-life tyre management from the cost and environmental perspectives: a case study of Thailand

“…In the early stages of scrap tyre recycling, the United States Department of Energy proposed that a minimum of 5% of recycled rubber be incorporated in all rubber products produced in the US (Murtland, 1981;Chang, 2008). In Taiwan, the 1989 'Regulations for Recovery and Disposal of Discarded Tyres' was released by the government to promote scrap tyre recycling (Yang, 1993;Fan, Lin and Chang, 2005).…”

Green Supply Chain Collaboration for Fashionable Consumer Electronics Products under Third-Party Power Intervention—A Resource Dependence Perspective

“…Taiwanese FCEP producer-dealer distribution channels are the most complex producer-dealer distribution channels worldwide. Additionally, the dramatic rise in demonstrations by green communities and the government's synchronal adoption of green policies and regulations have push firms, including producers and retailers, to face squarely the joint responsibility for improvements in e-waste collection and recycling in Taiwan [146,161]. Under TPPI, the island-wide scrap-computer collection points mainly consist of computer retailers have been widely allocated to deal with end-of-life FCEP collection and provide consumers with money on the spot for returning end-of-life computers [107].…”

Recycling research on spent fluorescent lamps on the basis of extended producer responsibility in China

“…The fund is used to subsidize dismantling plants for discarded appliances, such as subsidies of $13.64 (the USD-yuan exchange rate is at 6.2296) for a TV set and $12.84 for a refrigerator. Fan et al (2005) believed that Taiwan's experience in resource recycling provides a good model for other countries, especially for those at the beginning or planning stages. Considering the experience of Taiwan and other regions as well as the existing fund in China, this paper proposes an extended responsibility fund for SFLs.…”

“…Local governments provide public collections of recyclables from communities and finance local collection sites. EPAT operates a committee-managed recycling fund comprising collection, disposal, and treatment fees paid by manufacturers and importers (Fan et al, 2005). As a result, Taiwan currently has an 80% lamp recycling rate (Silveira et al, 2011).…”

“…Taiwan adopted an EPR system for eight categories with 27 items, which include SFLs (Fan et al, 2005;Lu et al, 2005;Wen et al, 2009). The Environmental Protection Administration of Taiwan (EPAT) carries out the recycling program that involves the stakeholders (U.S. Environmental Protection Agency [EPA], 2012).…”