Taipei City Bans Single Use Plastic Cups 今起禁一次性塑膠杯 北市飲料店改供紙杯

Taipei City's Department of Environmental Protection have taken a step further to reduce plastic cup usage throughout the city.  

This chain beverage shop in Taipei will no longer provide plastic cups starting Dec. 1.

Hygiene Inspector, Department of Environmental Protection, Taipei: “This store meets our policy of only providing reusable or paper cups. This complies with our regulations. Thank you for your cooperation.”

Taipei's Department of Environmental Protection is actively banning plastic and single-use beverage cups, including PLA cups that claim to be more environmentally friendly and decomposable. Even if some shops still have plastic cups in stock, they will no longer be able to use it in accordance with the policy. Now, only paper cups can be used to serve beverages, some of which are quite colorful.

Mr. Pai, Consumer: “You won't be able to see colored drinks anymore. In fact, it doesn't matter. The important thing is the taste, not the look.”

Taipei is the first city to ban disposable plastic cups in Taiwan. The city's Environmental Protection Department invested a lot of effort in communicating with the stores, and finally won their approval. More than 90 percent of the stores have finished stocking up on paper cups to comply with the policy.

Lin Yu-hui, Dir., Resource Recycling Mgmt. Div., Dept. of Envr. Protection, Taipei: “So we set a buffer period of six months to promote the new policy store by store. So it took a lot of time to communicate? Yes. Basically, we did at least three rounds of promotions.”

The EPA is happy to see the results of Taipei taking the lead in expanding plastic reduction. The EPA stated that it plans to expand to the rest of the cities, but in order to reduce the impact, a buffer time is needed. It plans to spend two years of promoting the policy. The EPA's preliminary assessment is to first implement the policy for nationwide chain operators by the end of 2024.

一大早民眾上門買飲料，這家位於台北市的連鎖飲料店，1日開始不提供塑膠杯。

台北市環保稽查人員說：「貴店符合提供飲料杯都是可重複使用或紙杯，然後符合規定，謝謝你們的配合。」

北市環保局積極擴大減塑，推動全市飲料店禁用塑膠一次用飲料杯，也包含宣稱較為環保可分解的PLA材質杯。有些店家就算還有庫存的塑膠，也配合政策不再使用。而以顏色漸層、視覺取勝的飲料，現在只能裝進紙杯。

被問到有些漸層或有色彩的飲料會看不到，消費者白先生認為：「其實沒有關係，其實重點還是味道，不是那個外觀。」

全台首推禁用一次性塑膠杯，環保局在與店家溝通上投入很大的功夫，總算獲得多數店家認同，超過9成備貨完成、配合政策上路。

北市環保局資源循環管理科長林鈺惠表示：「所以我們就訂定了6個月的一個緩衝期，進行逐店逐店的宣導，基本上我們起碼做了3輪的宣導。」

對於北市率先擴大減塑，環保署表示樂見其成。至於何時擴及全國？環保署表示為了降低衝擊，需要緩衝時間，因此打算花2年輔導，初步評估在2024年底，針對全國連鎖業者先來實施限用。