Thailand could do with a few of these machines!

[webfact]

Thailand could do with a few of these machines!

 

Picture: Workpoint News

 

National TV reported on a Youtube post that showed a Thai woman living in Denmark using a machine that turned old plastic bottles into cash.

 

The woman was feeding many empty bottles into the machine saying that you could get as much as 15 baht back for every large one.

 

This meant there were no bottles lying around in Denmark.

 

For who wouldn't want to get cash rather than toss out their plastic bottles?

 

Slips ejected from the machine could be redeemed for cash or to buy groceries.

 

Thai netizens who shared the story agreed - Thailand needs these machines.

 

Source: Workpoint News

 

-- © Copyright Thai Visa News 2017-10-26

 

[RotMahKid]

Not only Denmark, you can find those machines everywhere in the Netherlands, also for glass bottles.

Edited October 25, 2017 by RotMahKid

[nongsung]

10 minutes ago, RotMahKid said:

Not only Denmark, you can find those machines everywhere in the Netherlands, also for glass bottles.

and only just since 30 years or so...

[samsensam]

 

when i was a child you could return empty glass bottles and get a refund, so it's not a new idea.

[Thechook]

Fantastic idea

[daoyai]

you pay a deposit when you purchase... so it is not free money but it does cut down on litter. most plastic and glass bottles get picked up by recyclers here anyway so, why bother?

[Misterwhisper]

33 minutes ago, nongsung said:

and only just since 30 years or so...

In fact you can find them all over Europe. And the only reason why these machines shell out money is because the erstwhile buyer of these glass or plastic bottles paid a deposit of up to 10 or even 15 euro cents for each. So there is no "turning plastic bottles into cash" as the article implies, but simply getting the deposit refunded for doing what every responsible citizen should do: recycling their empty bottles instead of throwing them into the trash or, even worse, dumping them in the countryside. 

[Thechook]

9 minutes ago, daoyai said:

you pay a deposit when you purchase... so it is not free money but it does cut down on litter. most plastic and glass bottles get picked up by recyclers here anyway so, why bother?

Why bother?  Um have a look at the beaches for one reason

[NCC1701A]

in the USA in 1960 when I was five years old I would look for glass soda bottles on my way home from school. I think you would get one cent per bottle, which was a lot of money back then. 

 

then one day I found a stack of Playboy magazines, and the next thing I remember I was on Soi Six in Pattaya.

[terminatorchiangmai]

Next months headline :  Professor from  some university invents Deposit money on plastic soda  and glass beer bottles.

[petedk]

Yes, Denmark has had a pant on plastic (and glass) bottles for the last 20 years or more.

 

I remember going to an open open air pop concert in Copenhagen and my kids went around collecting empty bottles. They earned nearly 1000 Dkr (about 5000 Baht) in one day as most people just seemed to leave their bottle s anywhere.

 

The system works well and you don't see many plastic bottles laying around. People will soon snap them up and get the 10 -15 baht deposit back.

 

Edit:  Thailand could at least introduce some kind of deposit on glass bottles to encourage recycling. On the other hand I am not sure how well the bottles would be cleaned at the breweries and people put all sorts of chemicals and stuff in other bottles.

Edited October 26, 2017 by petedk

[YetAnother]

16 minutes ago, NCC1701A said:

then one day I found a stack of Playboy magazines,

remember the hide and seek with those playboys; i hide them and my parents find them

[mikebell]

There are recycle bins in most UK supermarket car parks & you get nothing back in return except a warm glow.  You also get fined if you put the wrong coloured recycle bin on a collection day.

[Jeremy50]

Why is that woman drinking all those huge bottles of soda? Drink water, and just re-fill your water bottle. She got 15 baht for all those bottles, not as she said '15 baht for one big bottle'. It's about half a penny per bottle, or about one baht.  In Thailand hundreds of  street people make a living by collecting plastic bottles at all hours, and taking them to the re-cycling place, do we really want to take away their livelihood?

[djayz]

Welcome to the 21st century Thailand! "Free money" from machines in Falangistan... (I know the money was paid in advance as a deposit). 

 

How will they react if they ever find out that, in many westerm countries, stores actually charge customers for plastic bags! Hence very few plastic shopping bags blowing around the streets, littering the countryside or clogging drains and wee water ways. 

 

Amazing Falangistan. 

[ezflip]

1 hour ago, Misterwhisper said:

In fact you can find them all over Europe. And the only reason why these machines shell out money is because the erstwhile buyer of these glass or plastic bottles paid a deposit of up to 10 or even 15 euro cents for each. So there is no "turning plastic bottles into cash" as the article implies, but simply getting the deposit refunded for doing what every responsible citizen should do: recycling their empty bottles instead of throwing them into the trash or, even worse, dumping them in the countryside. 

Absolutely correct. In fact, the women in the video does say that people pay a 'surcharge' when buying a full bottle and that they will get that 'surcharge' back when the bring back their empties. Something the Thai article missed entirely or did not bother to mention.

 

Canada has been doing the same for decades with glass and plastic bottles.

[yellowboat]

Could they introduce that and a photo booth ? Been told by local photo shops "CANNOT" with no explanation as to why photo booths do not work in Thailand 3.0 .

[gusincebu]

In NZ in the 50s , yes 60 years ago.. my dad used to put his empty beer bottles in a wooden crate, out by the gate. The recycle man , Salvage it was called, would come along in his old truck, pick up the crate ..leave an empty crate ( cos u needed one to go buy another dozen full ones ) .. and ..leave the money in the letterbox !

Sometimes he didn't put out the bottles, if he planning to do a batch of " home brew " . Memories :)

Sent from my SM-T535 using Tapatalk

[maoro2013]

2 hours ago, samsensam said:

 

when i was a child you could return empty glass bottles and get a refund, so it's not a new idea.

Yes true. I used to collect bottles for pocket money.

[Thian]

3 hours ago, RotMahKid said:

Not only Denmark, you can find those machines everywhere in the Netherlands, also for glass bottles.

Yup and next to them are buckets to collect empty batteries.

[Prairieboy]

1 hour ago, NCC1701A said:

in the USA in 1960 when I was five years old I would look for glass soda bottles on my way home from school. I think you would get one cent per bottle, which was a lot of money back then. 

 

then one day I found a stack of Playboy magazines, and the next thing I remember I was on Soi Six in Pattaya.

About 70 years ago in Saskatchewan, Canada we would scour the highway ditches for bottles which we then sold for 2 cents each.  That is how we raised the money to buy our first bicycle.  Now they are 10 cents each but littering is almost a thing of the past.  Only a few bottles are now thrown out into the ditches.  Every spring and fall the boy scouts do a garbage pickup on the highways and byways of the province.   Not here, in the land of plastic bags, where litter is strewn everywhere - even adjacent to the bins - too lazy or uncaring to open the lids and properly dispose of the waste!

Edited October 26, 2017 by Prairieboy

[chinostar]

It's called pledge deposit. You pay a deposit and gets it back when you return the empty bottle.

This has been introduced at least 20 years ago in the Western countries. Thailand just discovered it? Wow, very attentive.

The point is not the machine would be beneficial, but the Thai mentality has to improve. Pollution does not play a part in Thai society as a social awareness. In general Thais don't care just as driving, parking, littering, queuing etc. It's me me me first.

[Wullie Mercer]

3 hours ago, Misterwhisper said:

In fact you can find them all over Europe. And the only reason why these machines shell out money is because the erstwhile buyer of these glass or plastic bottles paid a deposit of up to 10 or even 15 euro cents for each. So there is no "turning plastic bottles into cash" as the article implies, but simply getting the deposit refunded for doing what every responsible citizen should do: recycling their empty bottles instead of throwing them into the trash or, even worse, dumping them in the countryside. 

The bigger the machine the better for Thailand.

[MaxYakov]

2 hours ago, djayz said:

Welcome to the 21st century Thailand! "Free money" from machines in Falangistan... (I know the money was paid in advance as a deposit). 

 

How will they react if they ever find out that, in many westerm countries, stores actually charge customers for plastic bags! Hence very few plastic shopping bags blowing around the streets, littering the countryside or clogging drains and wee water ways. 

 

Amazing Falangistan. 

I actually carry 2 or 3 plastic bags with me and use them in 7/11 and FoodLand or elsewhere. In California, last year, I discovered that not having your own bag could really add up as most stores charged for bags and they were not cheap.

 

My neighbor has a contract with a company that supplies 20 liter water bottles for around 55 baht so he gets one for me when he orders his. I decanter them into recycled 1 1/2 liter plastic water bottles for daily use.

 

I give my recyclable containers away to apartment maintenance and they quickly disappear. I probably wouldn't take the trouble to haul them down to such a machine unless there was fairly big money or credits involved. I was a roadside bottle collector also as a kid and this first encounter with capitalism (for lack of a better word) was very satisfying.

Edited October 26, 2017 by MaxYakov

[impulse]

They had one on display at a Business Startup exhibition at the Queen Sirikit National Convention Center a few months back.

 

I'm not in favor here in Thailand because of the effectiveness of the recycling culture already present (and feeding lots of families).  They may make sense in high labor cost areas and places where there is a deposit on the containers, but not in an economy where thousands of people scrounge for recyclables to feed themselves and their kids.

 

Come up with one that give out a satang or two reward for recycling plastic bags, and they could have a winner- even if it's government funded at a loss.

[maxcorrigan]

5 hours ago, samsensam said:

 

when i was a child you could return empty glass bottles and get a refund, so it's not a new idea.

Yeah, same in the UK, we would then nip round the back of the off-license, climb over the wall and grab a few that had been returned previously and go round to the front to claim refund halcyon days!

[Cadbury]

4 hours ago, samsensam said:

 

when i was a child you could return empty glass bottles and get a refund, so it's not a new idea.

Ah yes! But that was in the old days when glass bottles were reused rather than smashed to pieces and "recycled". The bottle manufacturers realised after a while there was much more money to be made by making more bottles but making them non reusable.

It is now being found that glass, being a very hard material, is far more expensive to recycle than most other materials. It is hard on the process machinery, it requires a lot of energy to melt it, it is dense and relatively expensive to transport. As a consequence it is losing appeal with recycling agencies. So now it often ends up as landfill instead of a new shiny bottle.

 

[farcanell]

3 hours ago, YetAnother said:

remember the hide and seek with those playboys; i hide them and my parents find them

Lol.... it took many years before I discovered the joys to be found within the covers of playboy, because by the time I got my grubby mits on them (third in line in a family of boys), all the good pages where stuck together! 

[farcanell]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Thailand could do with a few of these machines!

Here was me, expecting to open the thread and see some beach cleaning equipment.... being the foolish man that I am.

Edited October 26, 2017 by farcanell

[neeray]

3 hours ago, NCC1701A said:

in the USA in 1960 when I was five years old I would look for glass soda bottles on my way home from school. I think you would get one cent per bottle, which was a lot of money back then. 

 

then one day I found a stack of Playboy magazines, and the next thing I remember I was on Soi Six in Pattaya.

I was doing the same thing in the fifties but getting two cents per bottle in Canada. Roadsides and construction sites were a bonanza. But I never found the stack of playboy books like you did. 

But I did find Thailand eventually.