★Project Overview

1.Category: 7. Environmental Awareness

2.Description of Our Community:

In order to make Taipei city be the most progressive and suitable for residing in the area of Asia and the Pacific, Taipei City Government tries to carry out the policy of “No Trash on the Ground” and “A Charge of Trash Bags”. Moreover, in the end of 2003, they executed the recycling system of kitchen waste. They changed the passive way of trash treatment to the positive way of “recycling resources” and “lessening trash” in Taipei city. The operation policy and sustainable development were successful and they hoped to reach the goal of “No Need to Bury the Trash in Taipei and to Recycle Totally.

3.Summary of our Project:

Taipei city has decreased 60% amount of garbage and increased 42% quantity of recycling resource since it executed the policy of “A Charge of Trash Bags”. Absolutely, it is a miracle of the garbage treatment in the world. There was a report of “What I Picked up about Trash in Taipei” in Washington Post written by Miss Julia Ross, a scholar from America to learn Chinese in Taipei. She described what she learned to dispose of household waste in Taipei. She was moved by the passion of citizens who were devoted to the recycling resources. As Julia Ross said, “Before my year in Taiwan, I was a lazy environmentalist,…Living in a place where I was expected to use what I bought and recycle every last yogurt cup and juice box left me with a new appreciation for what clean streets mean in a civil society, and the realization that I’m responsible for everything I consume. That’s as good a Chinese lesson as any.” In the eyes of Julia Ross, the environmental maintenance was more effective in Taiwan than in the United States. It made us be proud and touched to be a citizen in Taipei

Ten years ago, Taipei City’s sidewalks were drowning in rotting garbage. There were overflowed trash tanks all over the communities. You’d never know it today. Today the citizens in Taipei will sort the trash voluntarily. Then, meet the garbage truck five nights a week at the mouth of a nearby alley. It attributed the success to the policies of “No Trash on the Ground”, “A Charge of Trash Bags” and “To Recycle Kitchen Waste Totally”. Besides, the citizens who cooperated with each other to match up to the policies were the key point of success. As Miss Julia Ross said, “These curbside jaunts were my initiation into Taiwan’s broader waste-disposal network, made up of municipal employees and regular citizens all doing their part to keep the system humming.”

Ma Ying Jiu, the former mayor, guided the policy of ”A Charge for Trash Bags
From the DVD of “Trash Transformation War” by the Department of Environmental Protection, Taipei City

4、Our Internet Environment:
Our school provides ADSL for linking to internet with an upload speed of 100Mb and download speed of 100Mb. We have completed a wireless internet in 2004 and can receive the internet message in the campus everywhere.

There are four computer classrooms and a multi-media center for making teaching materials in our school. In each computer classroom, there are 35 computers for the students to have the computer class. Also, the school provides every teacher a notebook for teaching use. The staff is more than 200 people. So, approximately, there are more than 350 computers in our school, including the computers for the administrative use. Every computer can use the wireless internet in the campus. The administrative departments still use the desktop computer which is provided with an exclusive line for connecting to internet and various web services are available for application through the server. The school’s servers include Web Server, Mail Server, DNS Server and Proxy Server that provide convenient online application environment. Every student has his or her own E-mail address and has the capability of web making.

5、The Problems We Encountered and Coped with:

（1）Busy Students, Not Easy to Arrange the Schedule

Our team members were outstanding in many extra-curricula. They were the members of the Chinese orchestra, the chorus, the sport team and the language association, too. Our team members were always too busy to attend the research activities. Therefore, the scheduled progress of the research often got behind. We encouraged students to attend the research because they could learn a lot of knowledge and skills from the research, such as the skills of interview, interpersonal interaction and result presentation.

（2）A Great Deal of Interviews

To deal with the topic about “the trash treatment experience in Taipei” was huge and difficult because we had to gather materials from the different departments of city government. The information was numerous. There were a lot of interviews we had to do. If we did each interview on the spot, we had to take a lot of time. But time was limited. All we could do was to make a choice to deal with the important parts.

（3）Few People Who Used City-approved Trash Bags

Most students in the communities around the school were living in the multi-storey buildings. In these kinds of buildings, they hired the sanitation workers to deal with the trash. Therefore, the samples were not so enough when we compiled statistics of city-approved trash bags. Fortunately, we asked the students in the other grades to attend the line of samples, and we got the enough samples to finish the statistics.

6、Maxim in Our Hearts :

1.Before the research, like most students at school, we did not pay much attention to the trash tribes. After we investigated the topic about the trash we became to take account of sorting the trash. We were so proud of being a citizen in Taipei since city’s disparate trash tribes at work and its recycling system. That makes us feel proud.

2.In the process of investigating the topic, we found the trash, a trifling thing, had to manage with a complicated procedure, in order to avoid endangering the environment. Taipei City Government had done a good job to deal with the trash. We were lucky to live in Taipei.

 

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