In today's news, with Paz and Trevor:
Taiwan's first climate refugees, the EU's ban of products made with forced labor, and turning lunch boxes into electricity!
All that and more, coming up next.
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台灣地區的收批氣候難民恐怕會比預計中更早出先
How Soon Might Taiwan See its First Climate Refugees?
Many of us have heard of the dangers of climate change and the risks that many people living in coastal areas (沿海地帶) are facing.
However, did you know that there are places in Taiwan that are already suffering from rising sea levels caused by climate change?
台灣有些地方已經遭受氣候變化導致的海平面上升。
Yunlin County's Tai-zi Village (雲林縣台子村) has just built a new seawall (海塘) earlier this year to prevent the increasing number of large waves that affect the coastal village.
Chien Lien-kwei (簡連貴), a professor at the National Ocean University (國立海洋大學) has been studying Taiwan's coastlines for many years.
He says the Yunlin coastline's ocean levels have risen from 9 to 22 centimeters since 2017.
Professor Chien strongly advises (建議) residents of Tai-zi to make plans to leave the coastal area as soon as possible.
However, it's not just Tai-zi that is facing these problems.
There are many farming and fishing communities along the Western coast of Taiwan, and many of them face similar threats to their lifestyle.
台灣西海岸有許多農業和漁業社區，其中許多人的生活方式面臨著類似的威脅。
And not only are sea levels rising, but also the land where people can live is sinking (下沉).
One can only imagine the damage that is done when a large wave crashes over the seawall and floods the homes of people living along the coastline.
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歐盟協議下令禁止進口所有用強迫勞工製造的商品
EU plans to ban all products made by forced labor
Earlier in September 2022, the European Commission (歐盟委員會) made a proposal to ban any goods that are made with forced labor.
歐盟委員會提議禁止使用強迫勞動製造的任何商品。
The goal for passing this law is to keep products made with forced labor from entering any of the 27 countries of the European Union.
The law will target the main factors in the global supply chain, including importers, manufacturers, producers and product suppliers.
該法將針對全球供應鏈中的主要因素，包括進口商、製造商、生產商和產品供應商。
The EU executive commented, "This law can be applied to any stage in the production of a product, all the way from harvesting the raw material to the final assembly or manufacturing, even to any related processing that's related to the products."
該法適用於產品生產的任何階段，從原材料的收穫到最終組裝或製造，甚至與產品相關的任何相關加工。
When this law is passed and is applied to all 27 EU countries, the governments will have the power to block (擋) products from entering each country's market and even withdraw (撤回) products that are proven to have been made with forced labor.
National authorities will have to provide evidence (證據) of forced labor before taking any actions.
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垃圾山的一線希望；將廢棄紙盒轉換成電能
Hope for trash; turning cardboard lunch boxes into electricity
Ever since the coronavirus pandemic started in late 2019, our lifestyles have all changed drastically.
Even the way we get our daily meals has changed!
Food Panda and UberEats have become the number one choice for many people to order food.
Because of this change, the amount of waste (垃圾) that's produced from ordering food delivery has skyrocketed (飆升) in the past two to three years.
Taiwan's biggest paper production company Cheng Loong Corporation (正隆) has been fighting to deal with the increasing amount of paper waste.
Although Cheng Loong might not be a household name (家喻戶曉的名字), their products have been used by almost every person in Taiwan, including tissues, toilet paper and food boxes.
The company has invested billions of dollars to build sustainable solutions.
正隆已投資數十億元來構建可持續的解決方案。
Cheng Loong has come up with a way to filter the non-recyclable waste from the recycling process and then turn those into small, easy-to-use fuel pellets.
Then, these fuel pellets are used at the new facility in Zhubei to help with drying the paper pulp (紙糊).
This new facility cost Cheng Loong around 1.7 billion NT (17億元) to build.
The company is already using the fuel pellets for around 50% of all its energy needs, replacing coal and decreasing CO2 emissions (二氧化碳排放量).
Cheng Loong aims to process all waste material at this new facility and has goals to reduce the amount of coal it uses every year by about 30,000 tons in the near future.
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So, in today's News Bites:
There are places in Taiwan that are already suffering from rising sea levels caused by climate change.
Yunlin coastline's ocean levels have risen from 9 to 22 centimeters since 2017.
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And,
The European Commission has made a proposal to ban goods that are made with forced labor.
When this law is passed, the governments in 27 countries will have the power to block products from entering their markets.
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And,
Taiwan's biggest paper production company has been fighting to deal with the increasing amount of paper waste from food deliveries.
Cheng Loong Corporation has come up with a way to recycle waste and make fuel pellets from it.
The company is already using the fuel pellets for around 50% of all its energy needs.
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And that's today's episode of News Bites!