Rongji Industrial Company

A scrap tire recycling plant on Mingdeng Road Sec. 1 in Ruifang, where used tires were processed into carbon black and industrial oil. The operation shut in 2004 and its principals disappeared, leaving stockpiles of tires, carbon powder, and waste oil open to the weather. Heavy rain in May 2006 flushed that residue through the site drains into the Keelung River, fouling the intake at Ruifang Water Treatment Plant and cutting supply to more than 8,000 households. The Environmental Protection Bureau plugged the leak with oil-absorbent pads and sandbags and pumped out what it could, but the discharge returned with every downpour into 2007. The property changed hands in the 2010s without much evident use, and by the 2020s weathering had brought down most of what remained. It was periodically a site of interest to Taiwan’s urban exploration community.