- By Esme Yeh / Staff reporter
Environmental authorities collaborated with prosecutors and police to bust an illegal plastic waste disposal ring in Miaoli County that involved illicit gains of more than NT$70 million (US$2.2 million).
The Environmental Management Administration’s Central Center of Environmental Management found that a plastic recycling company used non-compliant raw materials to make solid recovered fuels.
It further identified an environmental engineering company that falsely claimed to be a certified plastic waste disposal operator.
An illegal waste disposal site in Miaoli County is pictured in an undated photograph.Photo courtesy of the Ministry of Environment
The center worked on the case with the Miaoli County Environmental Protection Bureau and the Miaoli District Prosecutors’ Office.
A task force was set up and led by prosecutor Wu Chia-wei (吳珈維) in collaboration with the Seventh Special Police Corps and the Ministry of Justice’s Investigation Bureau.
The administration on Tuesday said that the fake plastic waste disposal operator collected massive amounts of mixed waste plastics at high disposal fees from plastic packaging production plants in different administrative areas.
The operator then transferred the plastic waste mixtures to two plastic recycling companies, which left the waste piled up in rented industrial buildings, it said.
The task force found that the “waste mountains” contained not only plastics, but also other business waste such as rubber and wooden pallets, it said, adding that the volume amounted to 4,287cm2.
The two companies claimed that they piled up the waste plastics for reuse, it said.
However, the waste was a mixture of various materials instead of a single type of plastics, the administration said, adding the two plastic recycling companies did not have a permit for handling such mixed waste.
The two companies generated illicit proceeds of about NT$24.18 million and NT$2.92 million respectively, while the fake plastic waste disposal operator earned more than NT$44.51 million, it said.
The prosecutors’ office has applied to the court for confiscation of all illicit gains and instruments of the crime, including two excavators and two plastic shredders, it said.
It has also indicted six people allegedly involved in the case and the three companies in accordance with Article 46 of the Waste Disposal Act (廢棄物清理法), the administration said.
Those who dispose of waste without a permit could be sentenced to one to seven years in jail, with a fine of up to NT$15 million, it said.