DAILY TRASH: A recent survey from an environmental education group showed that plastic bags were the most common daily plastic refuse Taiwanese produced

Taipei Times
Date: Nov 28, 2019
By: Lin Chia-nan  /  Staff reporter

Taiwanese produce on average three kinds of plastic garbage every day, but most are not properly recycled, a survey released yesterday by the Taiwan RE-THINK Environmental Education Association found.

The survey of 1,085 students and online respondents last month showed that up to 96 percent of people dump certain single-use plastics every day, and every person surveyed produced at least three kinds of plastic garbage.

Plastic bags are the most common trash that people produce, followed by plastic-coated food containers, plastic cups, plastic straws and bottles made of polyethylene terephthalate (PET), RE-THINK marketing and public relations director Sandra Wang (王姿鮮) told a news conference in Taipei.

People might think that recycling PET bottles is easy, but only 52 percent of respondents knew that it takes nearly 450 years for the environment to decompose the bottles, she said.
[FULL  STORY]