School Resource Recycling and Garbage Reduction
Believing the environmental protection efforts should take root in the school education and spread the idea to families and further to influence the entire community, this county has been promoting resource recycling and garbage reduction in school since 1990. Dedicated agents have been sent on tours to promote and teach the student about resource recycling in schools. The county government has also designed resource recycling bins for the schools to use. In 1991, Yi-lan County started the resource recycling performance evaluation of every school in the county. Yi-lan is the first in the nation to have the schools of the entire to execute this program together. This achievement received the affirmation from EPA.
Yi-lan County has been actively promoting the policy of the prohibition of using polystyrene disposal utensil products since 1991. In 2002, to educate the students about the correct eating habits to act in accordance with the garbage reduction law, the county government established the limited usage policy and consequently more than 90% of the schools started to require the on-campus store to sell only fresh milk, mineral water and stationery. Some other schools even have abolished the on-campus stores. This program has greatly reduced total garbage volume and has significantly reduced the overall county garbage amount. Statically, within the fifteen high schools of the county (including vocational schools), Lan-Yan Girls' High School, Luodong High School, Yi-lan High School and Luodong Vocational School have no on-campus stores any more. There are 105 schools out of total 114 schools (not including branch schools) in the county have no on-campus stores. Those remained on-campus stores carries mainly fresh milk, mineral water and stationery.
In order to help the schools in promoting the resource recycling and garbage reduction program and to emphasize the environmental protection education, in the year of 2005, the county government revised ' Yi-lan County Schools Office Environmental Protection Execution Guideline' to educate the students about the concept of resource recycling and to influence their families.
The inspection plan should be revised according to the different stages of policy implementation. Currently, the inspection procedure calls for the inspection for the 114 County schools twice per academic year without advanced notice. It takes about one month to inspect, the best performance school will receive the cash award, and also the principle and the main managing staff will also receive the administrative award. This inspection has made the contributions with good results in the schools environment education, the participation of teachers and students in resource recycling and garbage reduction, also the students teaching to their parents.
