To help maintain oceanic environments by upholding the polluter pays principle, on 19 May 2016 the EPA announced amendments to the Marine Dumping Fees Collection Regulations. Made after examining current international practices, the amendments clearly delineate fee-paying obligations for dumpers of waste at sea. In order to maintain safe passage in Taiwan’s ports, port areas and the routes in and out of them must be regularly dredged. The silt and mud removed by dredging, however, is dumped out at sea. The EPA firmly believes that polluters should pay for using the ocean as a final disposal site, and has thus developed regulations to require the collection of fees for marine dumping. The EPA hopes that this economic incentive will encourage operators to look for other means of waste disposal that have a lower impact on the environment. To ensure the feasibility of collecting fees and to adhere to rules on simplifying government administration and making life easier for the public, the EPA has amended the Marine Dumping Fees Collection Regulations in accordance with Article 12 Paragraph 1 of the Marine Pollution Control Act. The amendments involve: definitions of terms in the fee rates and volumes of dumped materials (Article 2); fee calculation methods (Article 4); fee rates for every type of dumped substance (Article 6); and fee payment methods and auditing by the competent authority (Article 7). The date for fee collection to begin has been set as 1 July 2016 (Article 8). All the marine dumping fees collected will in the future be automatically paid into the Water Pollution Control Fund, a special fund administered by the central competent authority. Money from this fund will be used for the control, monitoring and treatment of marine pollution, and other marine environmental protection related research and training.