The Economics of Disposable Tableware in Taiwan
At a glance
The Snapshot
3
Pricing mechanisms
Taiwan already prices waste through "Pay As You Throw" household bags, Extended Producer Responsibility fees, and posted incineration rates (NTD 3,603/ton in Taipei).
2018
The plateau
After two decades of steady decline, per-capita waste generation stalled near 0.89 kg/day — researchers concluded the existing action plan had run out of room.
+16.7%
Since then
By 2023 Taiwan's total waste exceeded 32 million metric tons — a 16.7% increase in five years, outpacing Japan, Korea, and Singapore.
The proposal
Key Policy Recommendations
A revised, admissions-reader-friendly structure per mentor feedback: problem → proposed Taiwanese policy framework → the ~5 recommendations below, each with a short justification.
Recommendation 1
Add the recommendation title and 2–3 sentence justification here.
Recommendation 2
Add the recommendation title and 2–3 sentence justification here.
Recommendation 3
Add the recommendation title and 2–3 sentence justification here.
Recommendation 4
Add the recommendation title and 2–3 sentence justification here.
Recommendation 5
Add the recommendation title and 2–3 sentence justification here.
Read the Full Analysis
1. Taiwan already has a price for throwing things away
Most arguments about disposable waste start by claiming nobody is doing anything. In Taiwan that claim is false, which is interesting.
Taiwan has priced waste disposal through three separate mechanisms for decades.
Households pay directly to the government through "Pay As You Throw." Non-recyclable household waste has to go into government-certified bags that people buy, so every extra bag of trash is money out of pocket.
Producers pay through Extended Producer Responsibility. Manufacturers and importers pay a recycling fee calculated as the gap between what it costs to collect and recycle their product and what the recovered material is worth. The calculation is designed to account for environmental cleanup costs, which makes it a deliberate attempt to price an externality rather than a flat levy.
And disposal itself has a posted price. Taipei charges NTD 3,603 per metric ton to treat general waste and general industrial waste at its Beitou incineration plant, a rate that took effect in April 2025.
That is a more complete pricing system than most countries have. Which raises the question this page is about: if the price is right, why is the problem getting worse?
2. It worked, until it didn't.
For about two decades, the pricing worked dramatically.
In Taipei, waste generation fell from 1.26 kg per person per day in 1997 to 0.87 kg by 2015, a drop of roughly a third. Nationally, per-capita waste fell from 1.09 kg to 0.94 kg between 2000 and 2017, while real GDP rose 83% over the same period. Taiwan broke the link between getting richer and throwing more away, which is the outcome waste policy is supposed to produce and rarely does.
Then it stalled.
In 2018, an environmental studies professor at National Dong Hwa University noted that waste generation had been stuck near 0.89 kg per person per day for three years and concluded it had become very difficult to reduce waste further under the existing action plan.
He was right that the plan had run out of room, and what followed was worse than a plateau.
By 2023, Taiwan's total waste exceeded 32 million metric tons, or 1.36 kg per person per day. That is a 16.7% increase in five years and faster growth than Japan, Korea, or Singapore over the same stretch.