Multimedia Pollution Prevention of Mercury-Containing Waste and Articles: Case Study in Taiwan

In response to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, effective 16 August 2017, the Taiwan government in recent years started to implement the sustainable material management of mercury-containing waste and articles. This was completed by a cross-ministerial collaboration for preventing the adverse eff...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Sustainability 2022-02, Vol.14 (3), p.1557
Main Author: Tsai, Wen-Tien
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activated carbon
Air pollution
Bioaccumulation
Case studies
Coal-fired power plants
Collaboration
Electronic waste
Emissions
Environmental health
Environmental law
Environmental monitoring
Environmental protection
Food
Groundwater
Heat treatment
Industrial plant emissions
International law
Manufacturing
Mercury
Metallurgy
Multimedia
Municipal solid waste
Pollution control
Pollution monitoring
Pollution prevention
Pollution sources
Sediment pollution
Shellfish
Soil pollution
Soil remediation
Sustainability
Sustainable development
Sustainable materials
Waste management
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:In response to the Minamata Convention on Mercury, effective 16 August 2017, the Taiwan government in recent years started to implement the sustainable material management of mercury-containing waste and articles. This was completed by a cross-ministerial collaboration for preventing the adverse effects of mercury on human health and the environment, based on the multimedia approach. The legislative or regulatory frameworks on the control and prevention of mercury emissions and releases have been established in environmental distributions, including air, water, soil, waste, food, and article (or commodity). Therefore, the central authorities included the Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), Council of Agriculture (COA), Ministry of Health and Welfare (MOHW), Ministry of Economic Affairs (MOEA), and Ministry of Labor (MOL). Furthermore, the implementation plans covered the reduction in mercury-containing products by restricted use and bans on its use, remediation of soil and groundwater for mercury-pollution sites, control of stationary source emissions, environmental monitoring, and compulsory recovery of mercury from electronic waste such as waste lightings. A successful case study on the recovery of mercury from electronic waste using a thermal treatment, and its capture control by activated carbon, was also addressed in this work. Due to the effectiveness of source control in Taiwan, the annual reported amount of mercury emissions from the stationary air pollution sources indicated a decreasing trend from 1.989 metric tons in 2016 to 1.760 metric tons in 2019. More significantly, the ministerial collaboration in implementing the Convention in Taiwan also echoed the United Nations (UN) Agenda 2030 for sustainable development goals (SDGs).
ISSN:2071-1050
2071-1050
DOI:10.3390/su14031557