- Date:2019-07-03
- Department:Hazard Control Division
To protect consumers and ensure their purchase of legal, safe and effective environmental agents, Toxic and Chemical Substances Bureau (TCSB), Environmental Protection Administration (EPA) sets “Environmental Agents Inspection Plan” each year and officially requests Environmental Protection Bureaus (EPB) of local governments to implement it. In 2018, nationwide environmental protection agencies conducted 40,166 inspections on the advertisement, labeling, content and active ingredient of environmental agents; and the acceptability rate thereof was 99%. Among them, 139 out of 11,224 inspected advertisements (as shown in Attachment 1) were found illegal and an enormous amount of penalty (NTD4.07 million) was imposed thereto. The said violation was made mostly by citizens who sold portable mosquito repellent tablets imported from Japan without a license on the e-commerce distribution platform. Besides, 283 out of 28,719 inspected labels and 4 out of 192 inspected active components thereof (as shown in Attachment 2) were found illegal; and 8 out of 31 counterfeit environmental agents were found containing “Mirex”, an EPA prohibited persistent organic pollutant (POP) chemical substance that is also on the control list of Stockholm Convention on Persistent Organic Pollutants (as shown in Attachment 3). Concerning abovementioned unqualified products, EPA already imposed punishment in accordance with Environmental Agents Control Act and requested related vendors to remove these products from the shelf before the prescribed deadline.
TCSB stated that, due to the convenience of online shopping or auction, people in nowadays not only purchased goods, but also sold imported portable mosquito repellent products through e-commerce distribution platforms. Nevertheless, TCSB emphasized that advertisements of this kind of environmental agents could only be published by vendors who possessed an environmental agent vendor license; otherwise, a penalty amounted from NTD60,000 to NTD300,000 would be imposed thereto. TCSB also appealed all citizens to stick to the “three no” principles, which included “no advertising”, that is, do not advertise and sell environmental agents online without licenses; “no buying”, that is, do not buy the household pesticides without EPA permits; and “no recommending”, that is, do not claim the efficacy of insecticides or repellents in online advertisement.
TCSB already established an environmental agent permit inquiring system (https://mdc.moenv.gov.tw/PublicInfo). By entering the product name or license number, user will be able not only to immediately check the legal status and source of specific environmental agent, but also to obtain information about legal pest control operators and environmental agents vendors. To better understand the safe use of environmental agents or to know more about unqualified environmental agents, welcome to visit the promotional website of “Environmental Agents Safe Use” at https://topic.moenv.gov.tw/evsu/mp-8.html
TCSB appealed that citizens reduce the use of environmental agents and, if it is possible, replacing the environmental agents with cleaning up is the key to prevent the spread of mosquitoes.
