The Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) urges gov’t to create strict electromagnetic radiation standards

2007/1/27 The China Post staff

TEPU urges gov’t to create strict electromagnetic radiation standards

The Taiwan Environmental Protection Union (TEPU) yesterday called for the government to work out strict standards on maximum allowable indoor and outdoor electromagnetic radiation levels to better safeguard local people from exposure to high levels of electromagnetic radiation.

The TEPU made the call in a written statement issued after completing a test of the electromagnetic radiation levels of the National Taiwan University (NTU) campus, together with NTU measurers, and other relevant units including Environmental Protection Administration (EPA), and National Communications Commission (NCC).

The units came out with different test results concerning the electromagnetic radiation levels in the NTU laboratory, with the NTU test showing the lowest level at 9uW/m2, the EPA at 90uW/m2, the TEPU at 330uW/m2, and the NCC at 350uW/m2.

TEPU measurers said they used a simple electromagnetic wave tester to carry out the test, and came out with an electromagnetic wave level similar to that recorded by the NCC, indicating the simple tester can be widely applied to test electromagnetic radiation.

As the government has yet to work out acceptable electromagnetic radiation levels for indoors and outdoors, the EPA should move to draft the standards as soon as possible, and should clarify that the 9uW/m2 level announced earlier is an acceptable outdoor electromagnetic radiation level, TEPU urged in its statement.

In addition, the TEPU said that the government can set indoor electromagnetic radiation levels at under 5uW/m2, as set in the Building Biology Guidelines adopted by Germany.

The government can also take into consideration the outdoor standard radiation level at 10uW/m2 and indoor level at 1uW/m2, as now enforced by Austria’s Salzburg county, TEPU suggested.

The TEPU also urged local universities to pay close attention to the electromagnetic radiation situation their students may face when using computers that have wireless Internet connections.

The organization recently released a report which stated that the NTU campus exceeded safe radiation levels based on measurements the group took near a wireless Internet transmitter inside a library.

The wireless Internet transmitter emitted over 1700W per square meter of radiation, far exceeding the 5W per square meter international standard for an indoor space, He said.

NTU officials immediately took their own measurements of the library after the TEPU report but found radiation levels lower than 1W per square meter.

NTU officials challenged TEPU to measure the campus again, this time together with NTU measurers, to “find out the truth.”

Both the TEPU and the NTU accused each other of using the wrong unit in their measurements, resulting in such a wide discrepancy.

TEPU also conducted tests on 25 different notebook computers and found fourteen of them to exceed 2,000W per square meter.

The fourteen include brand names such as Asus, Acer, IBM, and Twinhead.

However, the companies all rejected the organization’s findings, saying that their products have undergone and subsequently passed tests on radiation emission.

Copyright 2006 The China Post.