Taipei Times
Date: Jun 22, 2019
By: Thomson Reuters Foundation, BANGKOK

Once dubbed “garbage island” for its overflowing landfills and filthy streets, Taiwan now has Asia’s highest rate of recycling and is a role model for the region, analysts said on Thursday.

With untreated waste causing marine pollution and clogged drains triggering fatal floods from Bangkok to Manila, Southeast Asian cities should look to Taiwan’s success in reducing and recycling waste, they said.

“Taiwan didn’t do anything mystical; it just developed good policy based on the experiences of others,” Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research consultant Nate Maynard said. “If Southeast Asian countries adopted the same core principles, then they could develop their own models that work.”

Reducing waste is becoming a global priority amid growing calls for more aggressive action on climate change and plastic pollution, particularly in urban areas, which the UN has projected will house 60 percent of the global population by 2030.    [FULL  STORY]