It is the 9th year in a row for Taichung City to co-host the campaign of nine-day Dajia Matsu Pilgrimage Procession, Clean Taiwan with the Environmental Protection Administration and start from the first day of the event. Today morning, the April 8th, 2016, at Dajia Temple to Erudition Deity, the Environmental Protection Administration gathered the Environmental Protection Bureaus of four cities and 200 volunteers as a flagship team throughout the route of the procession. The flag was passed by Shu-Chiang Fu, Deputy Minister of the Environmental Protection Administration to Yung-Hsing Hsu, Executive Secretary of the Recycling Fund Management Board, Hung-Yi Chen, Deputy Chief of the Taichung City Environmental Protection Bureau, Pei-Ken Chuang, Chief of the Changhua County Environmental Protection Bureau, Chiao-Wei Chang, Deputy Chief of the Yunlin County Environmental Protection Bureau, Hsu-ming Yen, Chief of the Chiayi County Environmental Protection Bureau and invited Ching-lang Hsiao, General Commander of Inspection Team of the Environmental Protection Administration, Lai-Wan Liu, Supervisor of Dajia District to take the oath of “Garage Classified, Bottles Recycled”, “Bring Own Tableware, Refuse Deposable”, “Burn Less Joss Paper, Green Our Earth”. It encouraged people to take the action to treasure the resources we have on earth to sustain the environment. Later, Dajia Matsu decorated float parade, lion dance and leaders of parade led the flagship team to Dajia Jenn Lann Temple for worshiping with hands only, no fragrant used, and praying to the Matsu for wellness. Then, the parade went onto Dajia city center for further promotion using the Tambourine with recycling signs. As stated by Deputy Chief Chen of the Environmental Protection Bureau, in order to reinforce the recycling and environmental cleaning jobs along the route, the cleaning team of Dajia district had worked with Dajia Tzu Chi Foundation and set up 20 sets of recycling classified racks in convenience of visitors. At each set, there were 3 volunteers assigned to guide people how to recycle according to the classification. There are also recycling bins set up at 18 temples along the route. As the first try, tour buses with low carbon were rented to recycle glass bottles in exchange for free round-trip train tickets to and from Taichung and Dajia and resulted in 100 people participated. Volunteers also promoted recycling knowledge through a quiz contest. During the procession, the Environmental Protection Bureau hosted 5 recycling redemption event at the temples of Dajia, Shalu, Dadu, Waipu and Qingshui and initiated bringing your own tableware to restaurants with 65 businesses joining. When bringing your own cup or bottle, buyers get an immediate discount of NTD5. When bring your own meal boxes, you get 10% discount or upgrade. There were also 285 franchised beverage shops providing discount, drink free upgrade and special offers when buyers brought their own cups or bottles to encourage people to reduce garbage at the time of consumption.
On the other hand, Taichung City also shared 10 ways of recycling with people. The first one is to prepare your own tableware. Secondly, eating more vegetable and less meat can reduce waste. Thirdly, preparing your own bottles will bring you special discount. The fourth point is to bring your own towel. The fifth point is to bring your own hygiene pack. The sixth point is to bring your own shopping bags. The seventh way is to keep the garage from the ground. The eighth way is to classify and recycle for money. The ninth way is to use recycled batteries. Lastly, people should burn less joss paper and pray with our heart. All these need to be done by people on daily basis, put garbage to the right classification for better use, reduce garbage quantity and lower the burden on furnaces.

Contact: Hou-Ju Chen

Tel: 04-22276011 ext. 66413