The “Our Power, Our Planet” levee clean-up event was held at Tongxin Park in Huwei Sugar Factory on April 19 by the Environmental Protection Bureau (EPB) of Yunlin County as part of a nation-wide environmental clean-up campaign in support of Earth Day 2025. Businesses, local water environment patrols and community groups were all invited to take part in this event to maintain the cleanliness of the Huwei River levees. Public health education was also conducted during the event, focused on picking up cigarette butts, regularly emptying vessels (locations) with standing water, and prevention of Dengue fever. The public was reminded that under the Waste Disposal Act, littering of cigarette butts will incur a fine between NT$1,200 and NT$6,000. The event, in partnership with Lunbei Town Hall, Dabi Town Hall and the Citong Chapter of Junior Chamber International, ended up removing 397 kg of trash, 454 kg of recyclables, 7,647 cigarette butts, and 55 containers with stagnant water.

Yunlin County currently has 21 water environment patrols and 600 team members spread across the basins of Zhuoshui River, Xinhuwei River, and Beigang River. The teams are made up of volunteers from the community, schools, businesses, and civic groups. In addition to participating in EPB events and training courses, they also conduct regular patrols and waterway clean-ups aimed at maintaining healthy water quality and reporting dumping and pollution. 150 water quality tests and more than 700 patrols were conducted over the past year.

In addition to the levee clean-up, a family day was incorporated into the event through the “Junior Water Patroller Experience Course.” A guided tour of the Huwei Steel Bridge’s cultural history given by water patrol members included letting the children test the river’s water quality themselves, and a demonstration by team members on how UAVs were used to patrol the river banks. For the stalls, environmental education facilities and the EPB Civil Service Ethics Office were invited to host public education stalls. Interactive quizzes and mini-games were used to promote environmental education, promote honesty, combat corruption and fraud, as well as foster awareness of environmental protection concepts and anti-corruption knowledge. Resource sorting games were also set up to teach the public how to sort waste into the right categories as part of the outreach campaign. The event was used to present certificates of appreciation to recognize the Yunlin-Chiayi Office of Taisugar, the Wastewater Treatment Plant at the Huwei Campus of Central Taiwan Science Park, the Water Environment Patrol of Dingxi Community, the Water Environment Patrol of Beixi Community, RD&D Cold Logistics Co., Ltd., Yunlin Office of KGI Life, and Yunlin Office of FamilyMart for supporting the event. Thanks also went out to all the communities, town halls, and community groups in other townships that joined in supporting the planet and environmental protection that day.

According to Yunlin Magistrate Li-Shan Chang, special thanks must go out to local water environment patrols, businesses and community groups for taking part. As climate change has become a global issue of high concern, we must not underestimate water environment protection and governance issues and should protect the water environment together. With this event, EPB has established a diversified partnership among the public sector, community residents and private sector on realizing the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

EPB Director Qiao-Wei Zhang urged citizens not to dump garbage in the river or on the river banks, and to practice source reduction and garbage sorting in daily life so as to safeguard the water environment of Yunlin County and keep moving towards a net-zero sustainable green lifestyle.