Tamkang University (TKU) has decided to carry out overall recycling program, conducting the recycling of paper, iron and tin cans, and plastic materials starting from late February.

Office of General Affairs (OGA) said that TKU would integrate the educational service courses and school clubs to take care of the classification and recycling work. He hoped that all the faculty members and students would completely cooperate with this policy.

He said that at present, the manufacture of recycling tubs is underway. 100 tubs would be placed on every story of all the buildings at the end of February 2003. In order to make it easy to clean, and longer to serve, tubs will be made of stainless steel, he said. And the color will be silver, distinguishing from all other trash cans on campus. He called on students to check and make sure which garbage cans to put the trash. Iron and tin cans and plastic bottles should be washed before throwing into the tub so as to minimize the inconvenience, he added.

Cheng Chuan-chieh, Chief of General Services Section, OGA, said that the students who are taking educational service courses, part of school clubs and blue-collar workers would do the final packing of classified garbage. All these classified garbage will be placed in every building temporarily until a better place is found.

Recently a new phenomenon emerged on the campus that is students are found taking their lunch boxes and pairs of chopsticks in bare hand, strolling on the campus during the lunch hour.

Due to the policy of prohibiting the use of plastic bags and disposable tableware promulgated by the Environmental Protection Administration, the Executive Yuan last year, TKU has implemented it completely. Cafeterias and snack bars on the campus did not offer plastic bags or disposable utensils since the beginning of 2003. However, faculty members and students still have not yet gotten accustomed to preparing shopping bags, as a result, it’s easy to find students or faculty members carrying lunch boxes or things in bare hands and walking awkwardly around campus.

Hung Ching-jen, Dean of General Affairs, said that although the new policy on plastic bags may seem inconvenient, faculty members and students should be accustomed to it, contributing to the environment. Inconvenient and troublesome it may seem most students support the new policy. A sophomore from Department of Chinese once spilled the soup she bought in cafeteria for she couldn’t possibly manage to take everything in her bare hands. She still showed her 100% support to the policy, hoping to make a greener world.

Everything has two sides. There are, of course, people against the new policy, pointing out that the government has not prepared well enough for the conflict it may bring. They said that the buffer period was too short and customers could still buy the plastic bags in shops with NT$2 for each. Also the government did not adopt an effective measure to help plastics producers transform to other industries that would shake Taiwan’s economic development in the future.

In addition, although restaurants offered shopping bags for sale, students did not respond well because they believed that the shopping bag was so high in price and unpractical. Students even suggested that the school authorities distribute a set of tableware making it convenient for students. Nevertheless, this suggestion may be too ideal to carry out for the limited budget.