| 英文摘要 |
To maintain clean coasts, oceans, and rivers, Executive Yuan approved the “Salute to the Ocean: Coastal Cleanup ＆ Maintenance Program” (hereinafter the Program) in May 2020. Led by the Ministry of Environment (formerly the Environmental Protection Administration), the Program is jointly implemented by 9 ministries and 19 coastal county and city governments and private organizations. The Program focuses on 5 main aspects: “cleaning”, “reduction”, “disposal”, “transparency”, and “education”. This program established a mechanism of “regular cleaning, immediate cleaning, and emergency cleaning” to ensure that every inch of the coastline is properly managed and kept clean. The goal is to ensure that Taiwan's 1,990 kilometers of coastline remain permanently clean.
The aim of this Project is to support the implementation of the Program through the following measures: 1. continue maintaining and enhancing the existing systems and activities based on the results of previous implementation; 2. optimize the coastal cleanup information platform; 3. assist in strengthening the control and assessment mechanism of the Program, and 4. promote the achievements of the Program. The goal is to gradually achieve the shared commitment to safeguarding the cleanliness of Taiwan’s coastal environment.
The coastal waste monitoring survey results showed that from 2019 to 2023, most of the waste is attributed to “domestic waste and recreational behaviors”, accounting for 80.9%. After analyzing the top 10 waste items, the number of PET bottles ranked first for 5 consecutive years.
In addition, compared to the amount of waste in Taiwan with the global top five waste in the “International Coastal Cleanup Report”, the number of PET bottle caps ranked first: caps from Taiwan accounted for approximately 3.0% while PET bottles account for around 2.8% globally. Additionally, straws ranked third at approximately 1.9%. Moreover, of all the waste produced globally, the amount of waste attributed to Taiwan is 1.2%, and all three of these categories surpass 1.2%.
The data on PET bottles and PET bottle caps aligned with the findings from previous years; these two types of waste comprise a higher percentage of the waste found in Taiwan. Based on these results, this Project recommends continuing to devote to drafting policies on source reduction, plastic reduction, and waste disposal specifically targeting the PET bottle industry.
To coordinate with the Program, this Project developed various functionalities to enhance the efficiency of monitoring coastal cleanup results online for each ministry. This includes continuously updating the drawings in the systems for 310 responsible authorities, creating drawings depicting areas requiring cleaning, and creating data visualization tools and reporting tools for inspections.
In addition, to enhance data security and user experience of the website, optimization on features has been provided, including creating a single sign-on of the coastal cleanup platform, panorama views of coastal cleanup areas, and cleanup event webpage layout optimization.
For the public to understand the severity of coastal pollution and the importance of source reduction while promoting the achievements of the Program, several measures were implemented. These include publishing articles on topics related to environmental education, hosting coastal cleanups, and the Program achievement forum. These efforts aim to raise public awareness of coastal environment protection, attract different groups of people to report dirty coasts, and ultimately achieve the goal of collective coastal area conservation by everyone.
The Salute to the Ocean Project has entered its fourth year since its launch in 2020. Through reporting cleanup results by various ministries and information and surveys collected by private organizations, the amount of coastal waste has been reduced by almost 60% compared to 2020. The efforts of each authority show initial success, and Executive Yuan has approved the second phase of the “Salute to the Ocean” initiative from 2024 to 2027. In the next four years, the focus is not only on maintaining clean beaches, but also on continuously improving the effectiveness of coastal maintenance through the division of responsibilities among authorities, source reduction, disaster cleanup, and other aspects. The goal is to ensure that every inch of the coastline is managed and kept clean.
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