Taiwan: Unscrupulous operators discarded waste pickling liquid, causing heavy metal pollution in Miao County

Taipei [Taiwan], January 26 (ANI/CNA): Unscrupulous operators illegally dumped waste pickling liquid in Miaoli. The land is leased in Yuanli Town, County, with an abandoned area of approximately 5,100 square meters. The county Environmental Protection Bureau said today that the soil at the site was contaminated by heavy metals and would be announced as a soil pollution control site and control zone.

The Taichung District Prosecutor’s Office directed the prosecutor’s environmental investigation task force to uncover illegal syndicates dumping unknown strong acid waste liquid in Taichung, Miaoli and Taoyuan to pollute soil and water sources in March 2012. Subsequently, they used scientific and technological tools to analyze and collect evidence, peel off cocoons, and found another one located in the north. The waste pickling liquid recycling agency illegally dumped the waste pickling liquid without proper treatment on the land in Yuanli Town, Miaoli County.

According to a press release from the Environmental Management Agency of the Ministry of Environment, this industry is a recycling organization that collects waste pickling liquid produced by factories. In order to save costs, it entrusts a freight company to transport the waste pickling liquid that has not completed the reaction treatment to Yuanli, Miaoli County. The land leased in the Shuntian section of the town is falsely claimed to be used as a cement additive, and mixed with other industrial wastes to form substandard and useless cement blocks. It is estimated that the disposal area is about 5,100 square meters, and the total amount of discarded waste is about 2,800 tons.

The Environmental Protection Bureau of Miaoli County Government stated that the operator discarded waste pickling liquid and mixed waste in the vacant land, and dug two large pits. After the soil was collected and submitted for inspection, heavy metals including copper, nickel, lead, zinc, chromium and other heavy metals exceeded the standard. The soil is seriously polluted.

The Environmental Protection Agency pointed out that the case was investigated by the Taichung Procuratorate and Environmental Investigation Task Force and a number of machines were seized. The illegal profits over the past three years were initially estimated to be as high as more than 108 million yuan, including business operators, landowners and others, who were involved in violations of the Waste Cleanup Law. The case has been transferred to the Taichung District Prosecutor’s Office for investigation.

The Environmental Protection Bureau said that it will subsequently announce the site as a soil pollution control site and soil pollution control zone, and require the perpetrators to be responsible for restoring the environment. They must propose appropriate remediation and improvement construction methods based on the investigation of the scope and depth of the pollution.