A repeat offender was sentenced to two years in prison after dumping a truckload of waste in rural Pingtung and abandoning his broken-down vehicle at the scene — a rare hard line on illegal dumping in Taiwan.

• A man surnamed Chien was paid a small fee to haul scrap tires, wood, plastic and soil from Kaohsiung and dump it on open land in Pingtung's Sinpi Township.
• He had no license to transport waste, and when his truck broke down mid-dump he fled, leaving both the trash and the vehicle behind.
• Police tracked him down; he admitted the dumping but refused to say where the waste came from.
• The court found he already had a record for waste-law and public-safety offenses, and ordered his illegal earnings confiscated on top of the prison term.

Outlook: The ruling can still be appealed, but the two-year term signals courts are treating repeat illegal dumping as a public-health crime rather than a fineable nuisance.