Dragon Boat Festival is one of the three most important festivals in Taiwan. As it is approaching, many gift sets containing Zongzi and processed foods are on hot sale. The Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) of Taichung City Government urges consumers to buy only the gift sets with green packaging certification marks for the sake of environmental protection.
To strengthen the “less packaging" policy, the EPB inspected 2 supermarkets, 2 department stores, 2 restaurants, and 19 sales outlets on the eve of the festive season. Our EPB inspectors have examined 126 pastry gift sets, 171 processed food gift sets, 14 liquor gift sets, and 7 cosmetics gift sets. Among them, 3 processed food gift sets were founded to be over packaged. Names of their makers and importers have been reported to their respective local EPB for follow-up investigation.

EPB Director-general Hung Cheng-chung (洪正中) said, “Many traders tend to over-package their products, thinking it is the way to attract consumers. As a result, they spend a lot of money on packaging to make their gift sets look exquisite. Nevertheless, they also waste resources unnecessarily and cause unwanted impact on the environment, because our EPB cleaners must deal with those wasted packaging materials later. I hope all the makers and importers should pay attention to environmental protection and create a green consumer market. I also urge our citizens to work together to support green consumption. Less packaging and less waste, we can better maintain our environmental quality while celebrating the festive.”