What are City-approved Trash Bags?

Waiting for the garbage truck with city-approved trash bags is one of Taipei citizens’distinguishing features. Why do the citizens use city-approved trash bags?

The officer in Department of Environmental Protection, Taipei City Government (TDEP) explained that to charge for trash bags was one way to charge trash bill by the quantity of the trash. In other words, the city-approved trash bag was a measuring tool to figure out the trash bill. The bigger the trash bag was, the more the trash bill was. It was a fair and reasonable way to charge the trash bill because the bigger trash bag would load more trash.

“In order to understand the policy of “A Charge of Trash Bags’, we had to discuss first what the trash bill was”, Minister Chen said. The trash bill was the fee which the citizens paid to TDEP for cleaning the trash. Based on the principles of “a user payment”, “a beneficiary payment”, and “a polluter payment”, it was reasonable to charge the trash bags. Since 1991, TDEP started to collect general waste clearance and disposal fees in monthly water bills (processing charge of NT$4 for each unit of water consumption). Since water consumption and garbage volume are not necessarily related, TDEP have begun charging for general waste clearance and disposal based on the number and size of garbage bags used since July 1, 2000.

Minister Chen interpreted that Korea have begun charging for general waste clearance and disposal based on the number and size of garbage bags used since 1995. The quantity of garbage in Korea decreased 34% and the quantity of recycling resources increased to 40% in first year after carrying out the policy. In 1998, the communities of Zhongshan and Daan were stepping up as an experiment to charge for the trash bag and proved to have the same result. The policy of charging for trash bag had been proven to be effective in decreasing the quantity of garbage and increasing the recycling resources. And to charge for general waste clearance based on the number and size of garbage was fair and reasonable.

City-approved Trash Bags

To collect the trash bill was based on city-approved trash bags. Therefore, the specifications of city-approved trash bags were designed by TDEP. The selling price was the trash fee. There were 6 specifications of city-approved trash bags in Taipei as follows:

The smallest was 5 litre. There were 20 bags in a package. One package cost 45 NTD, and one bag cost 2.5 NTD. The biggest was 120 litre. There were only 5 bags in a package. One package cost 270 NTD, and one bag cost 54 NTD. They were more expensive than general bags because the expense included the fee of garbage treatment. The rate was 0.45 NTD for each litre.

The former Taipei Mayor Ma Ying Jiu, who is the president now, was so proud of the policy of“City-approved Trash Bags”proposed by Commissioner Chen Shi Hong of TDEP. In that time,Mayor Ma always guided the advantage of using city-approved trash bags and had carried the city-approved trash bag for a long time. Frequently, When Mayor Ma attended the wedding banquet, he often took out the city-approved trash bag and asked the bride and groom about the questions of the trash bag. On one occasion, when he met Eric S. Maskin, the 2007 Nobel Prize Laureate in Economics, he gave Laureate Maskin a present of a city-approved trash bag (cost 2.25 NTD) as a souvenir.