Taiwan Monday announced that it would spend more than 200 billion Taiwan dollars (six billion US dollars) on a six-year project to upgrade its sewerage systems.
The project aims to divert wastewater from 35.77 percent of Taiwan's households for treatment before being released into the rivers and oceans, said the cabinet-level Construction and Planning Administration.
Critics say Taiwan has long ignored the construction of sewerage systems despite its economy prospering since the 1980s, with tens of millions of tons of untreated wastewater discharged into its rivers each year.
Only 1.12 million households, or 19.5 percent of Taiwan's households, were connected to sewerage systems at the end of 2008, government figures show.
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