The EPA established the Recycling Fund Management Board twenty years ago as a way of bringing together citizens, recycling/disposal operators and local governments to be part of recycling efforts. The goal was to ensure that there were multiple channels for recycling daily refuse, such as bottles, cans, and old electronics. Backend disposal enterprises would then process these materials, allowing them to re-enter raw material channels for reuse. In the past two decades, Taiwan has reached a recycling rate of 52.51% in 2017, a significant improvement from 5.87% in 1989.
Visitors to the first floor were able to see the past, present and future of Taiwan’s recycling and thus gained a better understanding of the achievements. The exhibition showed football jerseys made from recycled PET bottles, sneakers made from recycled ocean trash, and wetsuits made of waste tire rubber powder, all of which are already well-known products in the world. In addition, a number of unique technologies developed by Taiwan, including waste LCD panel processing and recycling, are key processes in a circular economy of recycling, which reuse “waste” as “green gold”. This exhibition, showed that Taiwan has promoted resource recycling through the continuous adjustment of "policy and laws, economic incentives, R&D innovation, and network cooperation," to keep the resource recycling system up to date. The system has seen innovation and upgrading through recycling technologies to create higher-value green products, and it also introduces the concept of circular-design into everyday products to change life in the future.