Sewerage Systems Office

Sewerage Systems Office of the Public Works Department of Taipei City Government is in charge of the planning, designing, constructing, operating and managing of sewage pipes, sewage treatment plants, pumping stations, and other related infrastructures in Taipei City. Sewage pipes run like veins in a city, they spread out along the streets’ grids, carrying effluent to sewerage treatment plants for processing. A sewage treatment plant is known as the kidney of a city, it works continuously around the clock, purifying the steady stream of wastewater, and returning the purified water back into the endless circulatory system of nature.

We are the first organization in Taiwan to install sewage pipes, which clearly shows the commitment of Taipei City Government in preserving and protecting the environment and water quality. During the course of construction, we persevered despite the many setbacks, and finally were able to reap the fruit of success. The learned experiences were transformed into the following four contributions and innovations.

We Do More for the Residents - Household Connections By law, residents are responsible for the sewage pipe household connection construction, the government is only responsible for providing the public grids. An official announcement is made to each household, who must then apply for the connection within a given date and construct the connection at his own expense. In order to promptly help out the residents by improving the city’s sanitary environment, Taipei City Government has included the cost of the construction of the public sewage system into its budget, and has taken over the household sewage connection operations in separate stages and areas. This has significantly increased the popularity of Taipei City’s sewage pipe household connections, because it rewards residents by sparing them the obligation and expense of constructing the connections.

A Pioneer in Advanced Engineering Methods – An Innovative Idea In order to collect household sewage from the sewage pipe network that are buried in city streets, and to reduce the negative traffic impact caused by open-cut construction, as well as to lower the social costs of pipeline relocation, environmental impact and others, we led the nation by introducing the first non-open-cut construction using the shield method for the construction of the primary and secondary sewage pipes by applying microtunneling to set the layout of the pipe network. This new approach has effectively and successfully reached the goal of reducing the construction impact and garnered acclamation and recognition from other cities in the country.

Our Value-added Innovation – Alley Beautification By integrating the beautification of alleys with the sewage pipe household connection construction, we removed obstacles from the illegally-constructed alleys, and commenced the landscape beautification in the simplest, safest, most practical and efficiency way. With the characteristics of “open”, “bright” “beautiful”, “artistic” and “dynamic”, alley beautification adds value to the sewage pipe household connection construction, gaining residents’ enthusiastic support and boosting residents’ willingness for the connections. Alley beautification manifests the life aesthetics into municipal infrastructures; it also improves and transforms the city landscape, thus becoming city government’s highlight project. Our innovation in adorning the alleys is to thoroughly renew the lifeline systems, which has become the value-added project of sewage pipe household connections. Alleys have always been notorious for being filthy and illegally-constructed spaces. Therefore, when the sewage pipe household connections were constructed, not only did we collect the wastewater for treatment all together, we also improved the aestheticism of the alleys. We have revitalized the alleys with a collage of patterns and colors on the pavement, and with the enthusiastic participation of the residents and the gratitude from the officials, we have also successfully achieved the overall communal goals. During the construction of the sewage pipe household connections, we also simultaneously renew the existing gas pipes, water pipes and other lifelines facilities, as well as side ditches, which are all value-added projects of the household connections.

A Win-Win Situation for Everyone– Sewage Treatment Plant Sewage treatment plants are NIMBY public facilities. In order to facilitate the local residents, rejuvenate the limited land resources, reduce environmental effects, as well as create a win-win situation for everyone, the Dihua and Neihu Sewage Treatment Plants were constructed underground. In addition to the maintenance of sewage treatment’s normal function, a recreational sports park was built on top of the complex for the benefit of our neighborhood and community, where the proximity of residents can easily reach us, better understand us and keep us vigilant. The residents in Taipei are now the beneficiaries of two recreational sports parks, which cover an area of 5.8 hectares.