A. Introduction
Due to the increase in consumer wealth and changes in eating habits, about 20-30% (in weight) of the household waste (garbage) in Taiwan is kitchen waste, which includes leftover meals, vegetable leaves, fruit peelings and scraped food. In the old Taiwanese agricultural society, it was customary to collect and reuse the kitchen waste and leftover food as pig feed.However, in a more developed city, the collection of kitchen waste as pig feed is a practice that may look bad and can provoke protests from the residents. Therefore, before 2001, most of the kitchen waste in Taiwan was treated by landfilling or incineration.

However, the incineration of kitchen waste is problematic due to its high moisture and salt contents; if treated by landfilling, the unpleasant odors and copious leachate generated by kitchen waste is another area of concern. On the other hand, the high organic contents of kitchen waste make it suitable for other recycling and reuse purposes, which can not only reduce the pressure on waste disposal system, but also conform to the 21st century's sustainable resource management trend. Thus the kitchen waste recycling and reuse program has become a major component of the Taiwan Environmental Protection Administration's (EPA) waste reduction and treatment option diversification policy over the years.

B. Current Status
Since the fiscal year 2001, the EPA has been subsidizing the local town, county and city governments to establish their kitchen waste collection and recycling programs, in order to expand kitchen waste recycling efforts throughout the nation. Beginning in fiscal year 2003, the national kitchen waste recycling program is officially part of the Executive Yuan's "Challenge 2008- Six-Year National Development Plan - Green Industry - Resource Recycling and Reuse Program", and the EPA has budgeted for its nationwide rollout. At present, all 319 local town and township governments nationwide are implementing the kitchen waste recycling program. Since fiscal year 2007, the kitchen waste recycling program has been incorporated into EPA's "2007-2012 Public Development Program-General Waste Resource Recycling Promotion Program", in order to achieve proper treatment of all collected kitchen waste and to complement the “Zero Waste” policy.

In 2007, over 660,000 tonnes of kitchen waste were recycled in Taiwan. The amounts of kitchen waste recycled for previous years are listed in the Table below:

C. Project Goals
In order to continue the kitchen waste recycling efforts and assist the local governments in establishing diversified kitchen waste reuse system, the following kitchen waste daily collection and reuse goals have been set between 2007 and 2012:

D. Program Contents

1. Education and Promotion of Kitchen Waste Recycling Program

• Promote "Green Eating Habits – Kitchen Waste Reduction Campaign";
• Train kitchen waste recycling education seed instructors, and conduct on-the-job training for implementation organization's responsible personnel;
• Work with schools, communities and environmental groups to conduct education, promotion, demonstration and training activities;
• Prepare promotional brochures and handbooks to teach residents how to conduct kitchen waste sorting, collection and reuse;
• Promote kitchen waste recycling on the radio, cable TV and news media;
• Establish kitchen waste recycling webpages on central, county and city governments' websites.
  

2. Establish Kitchen Waste Collection and Transportation System

• Implement kitchen waste collection and transportation from households, schools, military bases and correctional facilities;
• Modifications or purchases of garbage trucks for use in kitchen waste recycling, and purchases of kitchen waste recycling buckets;
• Design collection zones, routes, transportation modes, and develop collection goals;
• Establish temporary storage sites for collected kitchen waste, purchase transfer machinery and cleaning equipment;
• Organize demonstration of a better-performing local government program, improve collection system and man-power input.
  

3. Establish modes of kitchen waste reuse

• Reuse of kitchen waste as pig feed after high temperature sterilization, or use as organic fertilizer after composting;
• Inspect pig farms permitted to use recycled kitchen waste as feed to ensure proper feed sterilization and pig immunization;
• Establish regional kitchen waste reuse factories/sites, such as high temperature sterilization facilities, composting sites, anaerobic digesters etc.;
• Transport kitchen waste to manure and compost manufacturers to produce organic fertilizers;
• Enhance the quality and technologies of the compost produced by local governments’ composting plants;
• Provide incentive assistance and subsidies to private sector to encourage establishment of kitchen waste recycling and reuse facilities.
  
  

4. Develop markets for recycled kitchen waste products

• Establish long-term quality and quantity data for recycled kitchen waste;
• Develop and evaluate safety inspection and tests for kitchen waste recycling and reuse products;
• Develop and evaluate other feasible kitchen waste reuse options, such as turning into feedstuff or adopt anaerobic fermentation;
• Work with Council of Agriculture and other local governments' agriculture competent authorities or associations to jointly promote kitchen waste reuse means.
  

E. Expected Benefits
Kitchen waste takes up about 20-30% of the weight of household garbage. If it can be sorted, collected and reused, the expected life of existing landfills may be lengthened, the efficiency of garbage incinerators improved, and the following additional benefits may be achieved:

1. Reduce the decay of household garbage and breeding of pests, thus improving sanitary conditions
2. Reduce the amount of waste and burden to waste treatment system, resulted in reduction in public nuisance prevention costs to incinerators and landfills
3. Reduce residents' garbage collection fees in cities and towns implementing the fee-per-bag garbage collection scheme.
4. May provide pig farmers with low cost feedstuff; when converted to organic fertilizer, it may improve the soil fertility; may increase farmland productivity and result in greening of land
5. May cultivate residents' good habits in conserving resources, and create a society with sustainable resource utilization habits

F. Future Prospect
Through the combined efforts of EPA and local governments, 1970 tonnes of kitchen waste in Taiwan is recycled every day, which reduces the need to build two 900 tonne/day garbage incinerators; and in addition, produces 2.6 billion New Taiwan dollars every year in economic benefits due to the recycling and reuse of such kitchen waste. With such an achievement, the kitchen waste recycling program has been awarded the National Sustainable Development Award by the Executive Yuan, and this unique Taiwan kitchen waste recycling experience has also garnered international praises and become an exported "Taiwan Experience" and a must-see for some foreign delegations visiting Taiwan.

No matter how kitchen waste is being reused, it is capable of producing high economic value. In the future, the EPA will cooperate with the local governments to further improve the existing kitchen waste recycling program, in order that residents can work with the governments in sorting and collecting kitchen waste, and achieve the complete collecting, recycling and reuse of all kitchen waste generated, and turn it into a useful resource.