PODCAST: Is Taiwan Adrift in a Sea of Trash?

“I’m going down with the ship, we all are, so we might as well get involved. I am not going to sit around and watch this earth go up in flames.”

In this episode of The News Lens Radio, we are joined by two environmentalists waging a war on plastic and marine pollution in Taiwan.

Many visitors to Taiwan are pleasantly surprised by the clean streets and beautiful vistas around the island. For those who go to coastal areas, however, the picture is not always so rosy. Like many countries with an extensive coastline, marine pollution, which is mostly plastic, is pushing the ecosystem to a crisis point.

Where does this trash come from? Is there anything that can be done about it? Or is this problem too far gone?

Today’s guests

Greenpeace Taiwan coordinator Claire Chen and RE-THINK 重新思考 co-founder Daniel Gruber are at the forefront of tackling what seems to be an insurmountable problem.

Among their achievements, Greenpeace recently successfully lobbied the Taiwan government to ban the use of plastic microbeads in personal care products.

And RE-THINK has motivated more than 13,000 people to remove more than 32 tons of trash over since the organization was founded just four years ago.

You can learn more about Greenpeace Taiwan here and RE:THINK here.

This podcast is available via the SoundCloud, Stitcher and iTunes apps.