chungli , an industrial city of 300,000 people in Taoyan county, about 60 km from capital Taipei, is witnessing a poli-tical war over garbage. : great wall of trash' has been rising up in the city ever since the local authorities stopped collecting garbage bags from dumps in street corners two months ago. The county chief Annette Lu blames her political rivals for the crisis.

One of the reasons cited by Chungli authorities is that local landfills have already reached full capacity and the cash-starved county is reluctant to anger voters by seeking new landfills. According to Lu, "Somebody ordered the town government in Chungli to stop collecting gar-bage from the day of my inauguration." She believes the ruling party leaders, embarrassed by her landslide victory, want to cash in on the garbage problem in the next elections.