The Wugu Garbage Mountain used to be a no man’s land in the core development area of northern Taiwan. Due to flood control restrictions on buildings in the past, development has been stagnant for more than 30 years as there were as many as 677 illegal businesses, and approximately 82 hectares of 11-story high piles of illegal waste. This has resulted in serious environmental, public security and public safety issues.

To improve the environment and eradicate illegal businesses, the New Taipei City Government has brought together people from 22 bureaus and offices to set up a project team to vigorously tidy up the Wugu Garbage Mountain. This team has been running this project since 2019 and has been using the United Nations’ “2030 SDGs” of “Sustainable Cities and Communities,” “Good Health and Well-being,” “Decent Work and Economic Growth” and “Partnerships for the Goals” as the core goals of the project. The team has used counseling of businesses to using the land legally, management of the local industries, takedown of illegal structures, afforestation and beautification, and road works to renew the local environment and improve the overall environmental quality.
To protect the rights and interests of the people, the team took the initiative to go and comprehensively assist businesses and landlords to apply for legal use of the lands and set up a dedicated website for people to access the latest information online. This shortens the application process as joint review meetings were employed, thus making administration work easier and more convenient for the people as the team worked with high efficiency. In just 1 year, the team helped 179 businesses made 157 applications, built 5 parks and green spaces and a central corridor, and the area added up to nearly 61 hectares of green space. With its dusty and stinky reputation in the past, it is now home to clean, orderly, and legal factories. The employment rate and industrial business performance is massively improved.

The team also used a different cooperation model: in the past, each unit performed its own responsibilities, and later it was cross-departmental cooperation. A cross-department cooperation was employed this time as the team held more than 200 meetings to actively connect and horizontally cooperate with each other. This was an unprecedented display of teamwork as they still supported each other in the face of the public resistance and this model of horizontal and vertical cooperation resulted in numerous individual and team outstanding civil servant awards.
The cooperation of the local people and the industry was also the key to the successful change. The people went from putting up resistance to displaying gratitude. The public and private sectors worked together to transform the Wugu Garbage Mountain. The City Government also invited the public to participate in the Wugu Garbage Mountain logo design and name voting activities, and “Wugu Green Oasis” won the highest vote as the new name injected the Wugu area with a breath of fresh air and geographic identity.

The area will continue to be promoted and managed in a sustainable fashion as Wugu Green Oasis will have businesses introduce solar energy installations, have colleges and universities build installation art, and create a green park full of youthful energy. The park will also host environmental education or city-county exchange activities to share all kinds of positive experiences. The City Government will continue to promote the overall development of urban planning, plan industrial zones, and propel local development. This will allow more people to live and work in peace at Wugu, transform the City’s appearance and environment and drive the overall development of the core area in northern Taiwan.