For the fugitive particulate matter control, we mainly adopt administrative control and economic incentives. In the part of administrative control, the construction business owner is the owner and beneficiary of the construction project. Therefore, it should perform the supervision, management and installation of pollution control facilities in the construction process, and should allocate sufficient funds for pollution prevention and control facilities and complete the installation of pollution control facilities before starting the work. Therefore, the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) issued the “Measures for the Management of Air Pollution Control Facilities in Construction Projects” and the “Measures for the Management of Air Pollution Control Facilities for Fugitive Particulate Pollutants in Fixed Sources” in 2003 and 2007 respectively. Based on the principle that the polluter pays, the “Air Pollution Control Fee Rate for Construction Works” was promulgated in 1997 to introduce air pollution control fees to construction owners in an aim to improve the local air pollution situation. In the part of economic incentives, in order to encourage construction owners to adopt better air pollution control facilities, lower rates may apply on those who use air pollution control facilities of higher control efficiency. The main work of the project is to complete related regulations and systems for the control of fugitive particulate pollutants, promote the work related to the control of fugitive particulate matter, and supervise the implementation of fugitive particulate pollutant control work.
In this plan, control measures and methods adopted by advanced countries such as the United States, Canada and Germany for leaf blower pollution were first collected. The some cities, counties and schools in Taiwan have being spontaneity prohibited or restricted the use of leaf blowers. For example, the Taipei Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau passed a resolution in its city council gazette to ban the use of leaf blowers on the city’s sidewalks, and Taichung City Construction Bureau announced that leaf blowers are banned in parks, green spaces and park roads for sidewalk tree greening and maintenance. It is also announced in the project according to Paragraph 2, Article 31 of the Air Pollution Control Act that the use of leaf blowers for cleaning of paved and unpaved roads, pavements and roadside ditches are banned in order to prevent the dust rising.
The Measures for the Management of Air Pollution Control Facilities in Construction Projects is reviewed in this plan. With reference to the laws and regulations of the United States and South Korea, the Department tightened the regulations on air pollution control facilities of Suspended Particulate Control Zone 3 and second level construction projects, and included in the regulation the agitation work or operation of fugitive particulate pollutants. In the construction process the construction business owner shall adopt air pollution control facilities with better efficiency to increase the area of the motor vehicle path and the exposed area, so as to reduce the discharge of particulate pollutants. In terms of construction project air pollution control fees, factors such as the domestic price index, the pollution impact of each project and the national health cost were taken into account. The domestic price index in 2015 increased by 1.17 times from that in 1998, and the pollution reduction rate of each project also increased. However, the national health cost factor is still from the results of the 1999 study. Therefore, in the review of construction fees it is not possible to clearly reflect the actual fees. Regarding the approach to construction project air pollution control fees, in the project it is proposed to amend Article 7 of the Air Pollution Fee Charging Scheme in order to prevent construction owners from reporting lower air pollution fees and avoid uncollectable accounts from finished construction works which are not deregulated.
In this plan a model field experiment on three types of piles (scrap iron ore, construction earthworks and waste slag) was carried out to explore the factors affecting the emission of fugitive particulate matter by using the test results as a basis for setting or revising emissions by industry sector. According to the experiment results, the PM2.5 emission rates of the different types of piles are between 24 and 1,176 mg/hr, and the emission factor of the pile weight is about 0.39 to 18.82 G/ton/day. It can be found from the experiment that the material’s water and fine soil content and the wind speed have a more significant impact on the experiment. In this project the PM2.5/PM10 ratio was also measured in the windshield model field experiment, and the PM2.5/PM10 ratio is averaged between 0.067 and 0.11, indicating that the original PM2.5 emission source of the ground material pile accounted for only about 6 to 11% of the PM10. In the same period the ratio of the neighboring reference station was 0.55. The mean PM2.5/PM10 ratio of the experimental results was lower than that of the reference station. The PM2.5 emission rate obtained in this research is lower than that of the domestic emission rate. Although it can’t represent the emission of all the material piles, it can be used as a reference for the emission of the similar materials according to the physical properties such as specific gravity, nature and structure, and serve as a reference for follow-up fugitive particulate matter emission estimation.
After compiling the air pollution control act enforcement information and the industrial and construction project inspection and punishment information in various cities and counties, it is found that in the industrial sector, New Taipei City had the largest number of industrial inspections of 17,498 from January to October 2016, followed by 11,823 of Taipei City, and Nantou had the smallest number of only 103. In terms of punishment, Taichung City had the largest number of 296, followed by 310 of Kaohsiung City, and Chiayi County had the smallest number of only 2. In terms of construction projects, Taipei City had the largest number of inspections of 1,190 from January to October 2016, followed by 584 of New Taipei City, and Taichung City had the smallest number of 26. In terms of the number of reporting that led to punishment, Taoyuan City had the largest number of 62, followed by 51 of New Taipei City, and Nantou County had none. In terms of civil complaints, the total number of air pollution complaints in the period from January to November 2016 was 85,763, and only 3,202 were on construction projects. In terms of the rate of inspection on management measures, the average inspection rate of first-class construction projects was 76.4%, and 88.5% of the first-class construction projects met the requirement. The average inspection rate of second-class construction projects was 65.2%, and 86.7% of the second-class construction projects met the requirement. The original emission of PM10 was about 56,949.8 tons in 2016. After the control measures imposed by environmental protection authorities, the emissions of particulate matter (PM10) was about 23,167.5 tons per year, with an average reduction rate of 59.3%.
In terms of the assistance in promoting the control of particulate emission sources, the road tracking survey was completed in seven port areas and seven industrial areas, and the road inspection was completed in 19 cities and counties. The survey results show that, in the port areas, the Taipei port and the Taichung port had a high proportion of problems, and the Suao port has improved significantly this year. The common problems in the port areas are the pollution of port vehicle paths, transport operations and handling operations. In terms of the tracking of industrial area roads, all the problem items in the seven industrial areas in 2015 were improved in this year (2016). However, in this inspection it is still found that in industrial areas there are obvious pollution and color differences in public and private places and the entrances and exits of construction sites that resulted in road pollution. In this plan, road pollution inspections were carried out in 19 counties and cities with a total length of 1,138.6 km, and a total of 111 pollutions were reported. Yilan County had the largest number of reported road pollutions of 12, followed by 11 of Taichung City, Tainan City and Kaohsiung City respectively. The main road pollution is from the construction entrance and exit pollution, accounting for about 41%. All the cities and counties which were reported to have pollutions have completed the correction within the deadline.
