In order to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements in both public facilities and private business premises, and to facilitate implementation of the air pollution fee system and air pollution audit and control tasks, the Environmental Protection Department, New Taipei City Government has commissioned the implementation of the 2015 New Taipei City Stationary Pollution Source Control for Designated Industries and Air Pollution Fee Late Payment Plan (hereafter referred to as “this Plan”). The main work items covered by the Plan include air pollution fee management, emissions management tasks, designated pollution source (e.g. users of highly-polluting fuels, fugitive particulate matter emission sources, and industrial areas, etc.) project management and implementation of controls applying to designated industries responsible for emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), etc. Various reviews, audits, and tests were carried out to obtain accurate pollution source emission data, and administrative work such as implementation of the air pollution fee declaration and review system has been used to realize the “polluter pays” principle, providing strengthened economic incentives for the reduction of emissions at source. The main results achieved included the following: (1) A total of 4,181 air pollution fee report cases were handled over the period from the second quarter of 2015 through to the first quarter of 2016, which involved a total of approximately NT$59.39 million, and of which 4,069 cases (97% of the total) were settled, with another 122 awaiting collection; the approved total amount of collectible air pollution fees was NT$60.25 million. (2) the percentage of air pollution fees resulting from positive actions such as active notification and assisted reporting that were paid on time rose from 80% in the past to the current 96%, which can reduce wastage of administrative resources due to reporting delays and help enterprises avoid overdue charges. (3) Continued implementation of improved audit methods such as cross comparisons of air, water, waste, and toxic substance and comparisons of up- and downstream linkage in new industries; it is expected that approximately NT$40.43 million in air pollution fees can be collected. Operators were induced to switch to the use of raw materials with relatively low volatility in order to reduce their air pollution fees, which reduced VOC emissions by 20 tons. (4) Inspection and testing in 87 instances found that 8 cases exceeded emission standards, and the responsible enterprises were
issued citations and ordered to make improvements within a limited time period. (5) Active promotion of a self-management system for fugitive emissions and requirement that public and private facilities to adopt nearby stretches of road and undertake street-cleaning; development of a cell phone app plan allowing the uploading of photographs was completed, assistance was provided to 40 enterprises voluntarily signed to join self-management operations, and 51 enterprises signed nearby road adoption and cleaning agreements. The length of adopted road increased from 10 km to 18 km, and the cumulative distance of road cleaning work surpassed 5,000 km; it is estimated that this can reduce TSP emissions by 62.9 tons, reduce PM10 emissions by 11.8 tons, and reduce PM2.5 emissions by 2.8 tons. (6) Awareness and promotional efforts were made to induce public and private premises to switch to the use of low-pollution fuels, and 12 enterprises switched from fuel oil to low-pollution fuels such as natural gas and LPG. It is estimated that this will reduce SOx emissions by 35.13 tons annually and NOx emissions by 22.78 tons annually.
