I really like Taiwan, and I really like my in-laws, but… there are days when the insanity it too much.
Taiwan exists in such a weird state, as a de facto country, that I think they are desperately trying to assert themselves as a progressive country just to show they can be like the “gown-up†“real†countries. (Never mind that the world’s “real†countries include such lovely places as North Korea, Haiti, Sudan, etc. ad infinitum.)
Case and point, over the last few years, they’ve been progressively banning or trying to ban just about everything that makes life easy and good: plastic bags, wooden chopsticks, nuclear power plants, etc. They’ll jump on any environmentally conscious bandwagon waived in front of them, presumably just to demonstrate they’re in the forefront and not at all like those dirty, grubby, environmentally destructive swine who live over in China.
Still, somehow, they’ve missed the point – all you have to do is look at the grossly polluted air from the factories and cars to know that the emperor has no clothes, or, to mix a metaphor, they can’t see the forest for the trees.
We got a 20 minute lecture this morning on how to sort the garbage. There are four flippin’ different garbage cans in this house.
One for garbage, proper. You know, the icky stuff, like paper you’ve blown your nose with, or greasy paper, non-recyclable plastics or (I kid you not) the paper you’ve wiped your ass with.
The second for all manner of recyclable materials, plastic bottles (washed, if you please), aluminum cans and plastic bags. (Wouldn’t it be better to keep those, since you have pay extra for them at the store?).
A third is for clean paper products. Newspaper, scrap print outs and paper milk cartons (cleaned, dried and pressed, no less.)
Finally, there’s the pig slop bucket. Yes, that’s right, food waste is sent to the farms so the pigs can eat it. Isn’t letting pigs eat food waste how those nasty diseases like BSE pass from one species to another? Presumably because of this very problem, the slop bucket is actually divided into two types. Vegetables, raw meat, potato skins and cooked meat scraps. The cooked stuff goes to the pigs, the other goes for fertilizer.
Considering how unlikely it is for anyone in Taiwan to pay attention to the rules of anything, is there any reason to believe that people really diligently sort their garbage? They don’t pay attention to any other signs, rules or laws, why should this be any different?
Not only am I not inclined to believe they’ll properly sort their meats, I’m not even convinced they’d properly sort the other garbage. From my point of view it’s just as likely the pork I’m eating was fed on the papers that wipe the collective asses of Taiwan. Not only would they be disinclined to pay attention to the rules, there’s a negative incentive for them to do so – for garbage proper, they pay by the bag to dispose of it, but the recyclables are free. Sure, the garbage man spot checks the garbage when it’s handed over, but a good and clever monkey could find a way around getting caught.
Knowing that, I’m not really inclined to eat pork here again.
Apart from Taiwan’s country-envy status, I think this sort of knee-jerk psuedo-environmentalism appeals to the Taiwanese psyche. This is, after all, a country that believes in feng shui, fortune tellers and ghosts.
Taiwan has lots of mosquitoes. It also has malaria and dengue fever, both serious mosquito-borne illnesses that mankind has spent staggering amounts of time and money in order to eradicate, and yet, while watching TV tonight they were advertising new “all-natural†OFF insect repellant. “90% of mothers prefer all-natural OFF.†Yes, frightening isn’t it? 90% of mothers would choose to protect their children from potentially fatal illnesses with insect repellants clinically proven not to work one damn bit.
They might as well strap magnets and copper bands on their wrists for all the good it will do.
It’s true! We have to surreptitiously coat our children in real insect repellant otherwise my mother-in-law freaks out. Never mind that while we were letting her use the all-natural stuff they were being eaten alive. We just let her spritz on the worthless stuff for her peace of mind and go on.
[I’m not done with this thread, but I’ll save some for later.]
Impressed though I am by your commitment to wasting things even when they could be useful, there are a couple of questions that I think perhaps still need an answer.
1. With regard to the payment regime (pay per bag) has this increased efficiency (ie do Taiwanese pay less – per head – for rubbish disposal as a result of it)? This is related to a hot topic in the UK right now as several cities move to decrease the frequency of refuse collection (to once per fortnight) whilst increasing recycling (to weekly).
2. What is it that the pigs would be fed on if the supply of household slops were to cease (i.e. do you know it is safer/better)? My suspicion is that their diet might would be more alarming, although since one wouldn’t need to know it, one could more easily enjoy the comfort of ignorance.
Incidentally, what is supposed to have caused BSE was feeding scrap meat to cows (specifically scrapie infected sheep). Cows are vegetarian. Pigs are omnivores.
Impressed though I am by your commitment to wasting things even when they could be useful, there are a couple of questions that I think perhaps still need an answer.
1. With regard to the payment regime (pay per bag) has this increased efficiency (ie do Taiwanese pay less – per head – for rubbish disposal as a result of it)? This is related to a hot topic in the UK right now as several cities move to decrease the frequency of refuse collection (to once per fortnight) whilst increasing recycling (to weekly).
2. What is it that the pigs would be fed on if the supply of household slops were to cease (i.e. do you know it is safer/better)? My suspicion is that their diet might would be more alarming, although since one wouldn’t need to know it, one could more easily enjoy the comfort of ignorance.
Incidentally, what is supposed to have caused BSE was feeding scrap meat to cows (specifically scrapie infected sheep). Cows are vegetarian. Pigs are omnivores.
🙂 I do have a certain fondness for waste. 🙂
However, I’m not as down on the ideas presented, just the spirit in which they’ve been arrived it, which is rather more political than genuine ecological foresight. Using politics to engender real ecological progress is like herding cats. I firmly believe that positive ecological change will come not through regulation but through changing public perception creating a market for the products that will make a difference.
As for the price of this current system… I’ve not read anything in particular about the cost effectiveness of this process. I’ve got an inquiry into my translation department.
One thing that I should point out if that rubbish collection is daily here, and you have to deliver to the trucks which come to the designated locations (street corners, usually – I’m posting a video on that soon) at the designated time and hand it to the garbage collectors.
Before recycling, the total garbage collection was daily, now I’m unsure if it’s all types of garbage everyday.
To some extent, I think garbage collection may have saved some people money. Here’s why: The system uses specially government printed bags. You buy the bags, you stuff them as full as you possibly can, and those are the only bags that the garbage collectors will accept.
There was big business in counterfeit garbage bags after the scheme was put in place, and the city had to remove all the public garbage cans on the streets because everyone was stuffing them with their home waste rather than pay for the bags.
Since then the garbage cans are back (with very small openings) and I believe the counterfeiting has diminished, but I’m sure it hasn’t disappeared completely.
As for what pigs eat… yeah, I’ve never been too comfortable with that either way, but ignorance is bliss. I’d like to think that the farmers would have some concern for what they’re feeding the pigs because, economically, it could come back to haunt them in a big way. Yes, they’ll eat anything, but we don’t want to feed them something that will damage the profits.
Putting this in the hands of the disinterested city-dweller, whose sole (albeit short-sighted) concern is saving himself money, seems less likely to use Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of capitalism to arrive at the desired result.
(Sadly, the invisible hand doesn’t do enough to protect the consumer and that’s why I advocate government inspection and health regulations.)
🙂 I do have a certain fondness for waste. 🙂
However, I’m not as down on the ideas presented, just the spirit in which they’ve been arrived it, which is rather more political than genuine ecological foresight. Using politics to engender real ecological progress is like herding cats. I firmly believe that positive ecological change will come not through regulation but through changing public perception creating a market for the products that will make a difference.
As for the price of this current system… I’ve not read anything in particular about the cost effectiveness of this process. I’ve got an inquiry into my translation department.
One thing that I should point out if that rubbish collection is daily here, and you have to deliver to the trucks which come to the designated locations (street corners, usually – I’m posting a video on that soon) at the designated time and hand it to the garbage collectors.
Before recycling, the total garbage collection was daily, now I’m unsure if it’s all types of garbage everyday.
To some extent, I think garbage collection may have saved some people money. Here’s why: The system uses specially government printed bags. You buy the bags, you stuff them as full as you possibly can, and those are the only bags that the garbage collectors will accept.
There was big business in counterfeit garbage bags after the scheme was put in place, and the city had to remove all the public garbage cans on the streets because everyone was stuffing them with their home waste rather than pay for the bags.
Since then the garbage cans are back (with very small openings) and I believe the counterfeiting has diminished, but I’m sure it hasn’t disappeared completely.
As for what pigs eat… yeah, I’ve never been too comfortable with that either way, but ignorance is bliss. I’d like to think that the farmers would have some concern for what they’re feeding the pigs because, economically, it could come back to haunt them in a big way. Yes, they’ll eat anything, but we don’t want to feed them something that will damage the profits.
Putting this in the hands of the disinterested city-dweller, whose sole (albeit short-sighted) concern is saving himself money, seems less likely to use Adam Smith’s “invisible hand” of capitalism to arrive at the desired result.
(Sadly, the invisible hand doesn’t do enough to protect the consumer and that’s why I advocate government inspection and health regulations.)
The printed bag scheme is used over here (eg. Pembrokeshire CC) but as far as I know, there hasn’t been widespread counterfeiting… That’s either got to be because of greater public support, or culturally differing attitudes to government!
What happened in Taiwan with the bins on the street reflects what’s happening with us as the regulations are tightened up at the municipal dump: an increase in fly tipping. Bottom line: you’ve got to take people with you, and you can’t make change happen too fast. Having said that, in three weeks time smoking in public places will be banned over here. When it happened in Ireland everyone predicted full scale revolt and that the rules would be routinely circumvented but it changed the culture over there, and I think the same thing will soon happen here.
As for the invisible hand… well, of course it was the farmers who decided cooked diseased sheep would make a good protein supplement for cattle. This was motivated by economic concern: it was a more cost-effective way of meeting their dietry requirements. Yes, economically it came back to haunt them, but without the BSE scare, no-one would ever have seen what the invisible hand had done. So it was a rational (if ethically questionable) choice at the time.
The printed bag scheme is used over here (eg. Pembrokeshire CC) but as far as I know, there hasn’t been widespread counterfeiting… That’s either got to be because of greater public support, or culturally differing attitudes to government!
What happened in Taiwan with the bins on the street reflects what’s happening with us as the regulations are tightened up at the municipal dump: an increase in fly tipping. Bottom line: you’ve got to take people with you, and you can’t make change happen too fast. Having said that, in three weeks time smoking in public places will be banned over here. When it happened in Ireland everyone predicted full scale revolt and that the rules would be routinely circumvented but it changed the culture over there, and I think the same thing will soon happen here.
As for the invisible hand… well, of course it was the farmers who decided cooked diseased sheep would make a good protein supplement for cattle. This was motivated by economic concern: it was a more cost-effective way of meeting their dietry requirements. Yes, economically it came back to haunt them, but without the BSE scare, no-one would ever have seen what the invisible hand had done. So it was a rational (if ethically questionable) choice at the time.