The purpose of this project is to maintain the air quality of Pingtung County through the guidance and controlling to properly arrange and improve the burning of agricultural waste and spirit money in open air. The plan has been carried out since January 1, 2023, and as of December 4, 2023, the following works have been achieved.
I. The audit and inspection control of agricultural waste burning in open air.
(a) Focusing on open-air burning popular areas and sightseeing routes to strengthen inspections, a total of 254 cases were detected. In addition, with technological enforcement which including the installation of six mobile monitoring camera equipment, and the implementation of the UAV drone on the day of the airborne product defects for a total of 28 flights, 32 cases were detected.
(b) Implement independent management of farmland leased out by TaiSugar. The information of 412.73 hectares of farmland were collected and 329.5 hectares of farmland were selected for inspection, none open-air burning have been found, demonstrating that the use of lease contracts to bind lessees is quite effective.
II. Diversity of agricultural waste treatment
(a) Removal of 3,676 tons of agricultural waste and 303.6 tons of agricultural film have been conducted. Furthermore, promoting the recycling and reuse of agricultural waste by crushing wood waste for river land paving and composting, and using agricultural film as a cover for construction sites and gravel quarries to suppress dust emissions.
(b) Providing eight temporary centralized disposal sites for agricultural waste, and setting up a new centralized site in Gaoshu Township for farmers to place their agricultural waste this year, which will then be removed by EPA.
(c) Counseling to the substitute labor class for on-site crushing and 533 hectares of audits were conducted to encourage farmers to replace open-air burning with on-site crushing.
III. Centralized burning of spirit money and counselling temples
(a) In terms of disposal, through the centralized collection and delivery of spirit money to the Jin Ping An Eco-friendly Furnace for exclusive burning. The amount of spirit money delivered has been reached 1,116.1 tons, the highest amount in the past years
(b) Through conducting in-person visits selecting temples to counsel spirit money reduction, 20 temples cooperated with the implementation of the reduction measures, among which 2 temples were willing to install eco-friendly furnaces this year. In addition, the plan cooperated with the disseminate team to conduct counseling on the eve of temple celebrations, and 4 temples were counseled to reduce the amount of spirit money in total.
(c) Coordinated with Civil Administration Office and temples to promote the use of lucky golden coin to replace 70% of spirit money burning, so far, 2,000 golden coins have been distributed to 13 temples and some temples have expressed their willingness to apply for lucky golden coins to join the spirit money reduction action. The remaining 1,000 golden coins will be promoted in other activities.
IV. Dissemination and literature
(a) Organized four disseminate meetings for the ban on open-air burning, one was held in Fangliao Township, which had the highest seizure of open-air burning this year.
(b) Organized four disseminations for the ban on open-air burning and spirit money reduction, two of which promoted the use of golden coins as a substitute for golden spirit money.
(c) 800 promotional materials were product to be distributed in disseminate activities of the ban on open-air burning, centralized burning of spirit money, and waste reduction.
V. Completion rate
The promoting programs for proper disposal of agricultural waste mainly includes setting up a counseling platform for the proper disposal of agricultural waste, collecting agricultural information, expanding the implementation of on-site crushing of agricultural waste, tilling and burying of agricultural waste. Moreover, continuing to provide off-site treatment of agricultural waste, resource treatment of agricultural waste, self-management, dissemination, and inspection in order to improve the situation of open-air burning of agricultural waste within the county. This year, the completion rate of long-term crops reached 91% and short-term crops reached 98%, hit a record high.
VI. Satisfaction
According to the public satisfaction survey conducted by Sun Yat-Sen University, 90.6% of the people were satisfied the improvement on open-air burning caused by agricultural waste compared to last year, among which, 41.61% was significant improvement, 25.96% was better than last year.
