Thais are terrible polluters - using EIGHT plastic bags each per day, conference told

[Pdavies99]

1 hour ago, nobodysfriend said:

Just stop producing this rubbish .

The blame should clearly lay at Tesco's, Big C and all the other could not care less large shops, if they stopped giving them out for free, the problem would easily be under control, this has been done in many countries, but I say again Tesco's and Big C do not care at all, unlike MAKRO

[chilidog]

The only way things will change if the parents start teaching educating their kids. Start it off by not throwing

trash from a car or motorbike. I yell at my kids everyday about throwing trash on the ground but I do understand

the mixed message they get living here.

The only way it will get better is if the government make it important to parents and they pass it down.

[speckio]

3 hours ago, champers said:

A radical solution needs to be impemented. I would like to see major supermarkets and mini-marts making a charge for bags, but also making a available a "bag for life" replaced FOC when worn out.

Umm Yeah places like 7/11 waste tons of plastic bags without a thought... I have seen people purchase items and the clerk would bag each item individually.. also there needs to be something done about the street food vendors they waste so much plastic and use tons of rubber bands!

[off road pat]

2 hours ago, darksidedog said:

It is long overdue for the Thais to be woken up to their polluting ways. Now that they are slowly becoming aware of the problem, it will be interesting to see what they actually start to do about it. Probably next to nothing for quite some time yet, I suspect.

I'll tell you what hey going to do. Some politician will organise a big clean up !?!? and print T shirts for the occasion.

a lot of people will be invited to help clean up, wearing the T shirts about the Occasion. Some people will be sincere and help. Then the TV stations will come and film the whole thing, take a interview from the Politician. Once the Journalists leave ? the politician will leave also taking with him all the cleaners with there brand new T shirts !!!

This is exactly what I saw when they spoke about cleaning up Koh samui...!!! some 10 years ago.

The whole purpose for them is to show it on TV !?!?

[peperobi]

Stop immediately the free bag at Tesco, Big C, Seven 11, Family Mart and all the other shop that are very generous with that. Years ago Tesco was planning to stop give free bags away, it was only a plan nothing more!

I must always be fighting with the cashiers of the above shop because I take only one or even none.

[Zack61]

3 hours ago, lupin said:

maybe refrain from giving me a plastic bag in 7/11 for a <deleted> stick of gum too

You have the option to say no. 

[peperobi]

13 minutes ago, off road pat said:

I'll tell you what hey going to do. Some politician will organise a big clean up !?!? and print T shirts for the occasion.

a lot of people will be invited to help clean up, wearing the T shirts about the Occasion. Some people will be sincere and help. Then the TV stations will come and film the whole thing, take a interview from the Politician. Once the Journalists leave ? the politician will leave also taking with him all the cleaners with there brand new T shirts !!!

This is exactly what I saw when they spoke about cleaning up Koh samui...!!! some 10 years ago.

The whole purpose for them is to show it on TV !?!?

Is aswell a big business, many of those people are owners or partner from a T-shirt company...so money business, I suspect as well that the plastic bags companies pay a commission to the cashiers into all the big shops.

[lamecn]

State of the art technology can convert waste plastic into high speed diesel oil at price below 20 THB/liter

[eddysmit]

4 hours ago, rkidlad said:

Me and my missus always use canvas bags when we go to the supermarket. Not long ago they asked to take a picture of us after we had paid for all our stuff at Tops. Reason? Apparently we were the only customers to bring our own bags. 

Many years ago I began taking  'reused' again plastic bags to seven eleven when I picked up a few beers and 'knick knacks', sometimes I got a smile sometimes a strange look,I think it was because of the 'wrong' name on the bags,the last few years I take a lightweight but strong bag when I go shopping,used the same one now for a long time,I'm keeping my eye open for a new lightweight 'canvas' or 'sack' type of bag,I think the Thais are impressed,or are they amused at my antics,I don't mind,always good when people can have a laugh.

[Jimdandy]

Just as the song says 'Don't it always seem to go that you don't know what you've got until it's gone'. Keep polluting and you will have nothing but garbage.

[pokerface1]

The easiest way to clean up all the plastic bags and bottles is to throw money at the problem. In other words offer say 1 baht refund on every bag or bottle returned for recycle. That might be an expensive payout for the government in the short term however clean streets, beaches and free flowing flood water going down the drain will have a great upside for the country overall. Tourist number will boom  just by having clean beautiful beaches again.

In fact tourists may arrive just in order to collect 1 baht per bag or bottle 5555

[CLW]

"fantastic garbage bags." that's no solution to the environment. There is NO fantastic use of a darn plastic bag. They should all be banned and we should only use paper or cloth bags. Why don't the Thai's (and other countries) look at what many other countries do e.g. Scandinavians and Canadians etc etc. But they just don't care. Its all about convenience with TOTAL disregard for the environment. Soon the oceans will have more tonnage of garbage bags and junk than fish! Read about the Pacific Ocean vortex of garbage. The other day I swam with Manta Rays near a deserted island of Indonesia and saw so many drifting plastic bags in the sea.  What a disgrace.

The biggest problem here is the proper disposal and recycling of plastic. Though there was some problems, the Dual System or Green Point Recycling System from Germany is a good thing. Every manufacturer and industrial user of plastic packaging pays into a fund for the collection and recycling of plastic waste.

[natway09]

At least the plastic bags from the supermarkets normally get a 2nd use ,,, as rubbish bags.

One big problem is the millions of take home meals from vendors ,, all in their own separate bag

which are not washed & straight into the rubbish bin .... if we are lucky.

My mate uses about 15 tonne of recycled plastic a month making lintels for buildings

[MrMo]

The shops and particularly the supermarkets are the organisations that could be forcing a reduction in use of plastic bags.   

 

I buy a newspaper; they want to put it in a plastic bag.   I buy eight items in a supermarket; they seem incapable of putting more that three into one bag.   I buy an already bagged-up item in the local market; they want to put it into a second plastic bag.

 

TOPS have a sign encouraging customers to not use plastic bags on two days a month.   I want to take a marker pen and add the word EXCEPT.

[hotchilli]

4 hours ago, oilinki said:

I think plastic bag is one excellent innovation and should not be banned. Here is why.

- Plastic bags are very cheap. This means that each bag uses miniscule amount of material and making a bag requires very little energy.

- Plastic bags work as recycling bags. 

- After recycling, plastic bags can be burned to create heat and electricity

- Plastic bags are waterproof and don't damage the same way as the 'ecological' paper bags does

 

In my country of origin plastic bags has been charged since I can remember. The bags used there are very durable compared to the bags we are getting here. This means more material and therefore more energy had to be used to create those nuclear bomb resistant bags. Yet the usage of those bags is exactly the same as it's here. Bring stuff home, use it as trash bag and burn to get energy. Not very ecological.

Plastic is used for milk bottles, coke bottles and those hipster 'ecological shampoo' bottles. The amount of plastic used for each bottle is far more than the plastic bags we get from the shops. 

Now.. the real problem, as so often, is us humans. Make recycling easy and show the results to the general public might do the difference. Education is the key. Not in a year or two, but in the longer timespan. We don't have to go far, just to Singapore, to see how nature can be mostly clear from plastic and other trash.

I do want to live in a clean world, but to get there, we need to address the root cause and not just easy as it is, blame the plastic bags. 

Plastic bags work as recycling bags. 

- After recycling, plastic bags can be burned to create heat and electricity

 

And there lays the real problem.. recycling,

for that to happen you have to educate the population to put their plastic (sorted into plastic varieties) into bins

at collection points where it can be picked up & taken to processing plants!

The problem is:

1) education

2) types of plastic

3) bins

4) collection points

5) processing plants

Good luck with the Thai system trying to establish enough of the above to keep up with the amount of rubbish

the average Thai is too lazy to scratch their own arse let alone sort out plastic!! 

Unless you've got a collection point every 5 metres they'll still throw it on the roadside.

[marquis22]

5 hours ago, champers said:

A radical solution needs to be impemented. I would like to see major supermarkets and mini-marts making a charge for bags, but also making a available a "bag for life" replaced FOC when worn out.

So would I, but London to a brick on it never happens here.

Supermarket check-out chick in Melbourne Aus still put as fewer items in as many plastic bags as they can!!

[whaleboneman]

4 hours ago, lupin said:

maybe refrain from giving me a plastic bag in 7/11 for a <deleted> stick of gum too

Just say no.

[sawadee1947]

hmmmh, if you would use more plastic even, you might walk on water as once Jesus Christ

[trainman34014]

31 minutes ago, marquis22 said:

So would I, but London to a brick on it never happens here.

Supermarket check-out chick in Melbourne Aus still put as fewer items in as many plastic bags as they can!!

Bit different to NZ then where they don't want to give you a bag at all but if you want one it's 50c.

[lupin]

1 hour ago, whaleboneman said:

Just say no.

Of course... and I do... I was simply pointing out the lunacy of bagging a single item of this size in the first place.

[cat handler]

No shit Sherlock, I go to the 7/11 and buy a single packet of smokes and they put it in a plastic bag.

[curlylekan]

6 hours ago, sikishrory said:

Theres an outdoor area with chairs and tables downstairs at my condo. People like to sit and eat there. Theres also a sign warning of a fine for littering but no bin to be seen anyway.

I asked my wife why not put a bin in as opposed to making people take there rubbish home or hunting for a 7/11 bin or something. 

Her reply was that maybe if put a bin it would be more dirty and encourage litter.

Goes to show the backwards thinking they have.

I wouldn't say backwards. If I read your post correctly, the Taiwanese supposedly had a similar problem when they put out trash cans - people were littering all around the bins, they were taking the trash from their homes and putting it in and around the bins. So the solution, trash bins were taken away and now everyone, waits to toss their trash when they get home, instead of outside and everyday the trash people come and you go out of your living quarters and bring it to them, along with your recyclables already separated.  A little different, but the same problem, trash bins were supposedly leading to more litter. Now if you look, for the most part, Taiwan is very clean. I didn't like the no trash bins for the whole 3 months I was there, but overall, seems to be a system that works very well. Asians tend to have a different mindset than us, I think and I really hope they will find a suitable solution in Thailand, all the plastic bags upsets and mutter upsets me too

[YetAnother]

8 hours ago, webfact said:

And it was high time that the issue and the root causes were addressed.

once you understand all you need to know about thainess (and some of my friends say 'asian-ness') you will see that people here care not a whit about Anything save themselves , driving, pollution, next generation . Maybe

[AlphMichaels]

Locals in my area steal the trash bins so the government solved that problem..., no more trash bins.  Guess they solved that issue.  

[dinsdale]

What this fails to mention is the mentality. Littering is a natural thing here. Stand next to a bin, throw litter on the ground. Khlong (canal)=good place to dump rubbish. I have noticed more parents telling their kids to use bins but really for a nation of up themselves people they have very little respect for the environment of their own country. Asian/Third World mentality. 

Forgot inconsiderate. 

[Ceruhe]

6 hours ago, impulse said:

If you walk out of 7/11 with a bag that you don't want, it's on you. 

Nope, not at all. Like I said, I don't have issues turning them down, but it's still not my responsibility to do so. If you do a monetary transaction you also don't give back more change than they are due. Plastic bags cost money too, just set it mentally equal to money for a moment and the employees are giving money away. Why would management want that exactly? If I take the extra change, I can of course give it back but it's still not my responsibility to (constantly) train/remind their staff.

 

Quote

And if your bag ends up somewhere other than a proper bin, it's on you.

Yea, I'm with you on that part at least.

[Dumbastheycome]

8 hours ago, overherebc said:

Biodegradable doesn't do that much good either. If put into rubbish tips when breaking down they release a lot of methane. Even if left in the open they take a long time to disappear.

Plastic is probably one of the worst inventions so far.

Plastics  are  a  wonderful  derivative  of  hydrocarbons really. It  is  only in the   inappropriate  form of deliberate  waste (plastic bags  especially) that it  is  bad.

There is  little  that is  produced  from  any  base  source that does  not  also  create  pollution.

But plastic  bags have an environmental impact that is in excess of actual necessity.

Because  the form of  plastic  film has little mass  but a huge  comparative  surface  area  capable of environmental clogging in many ecological  situations pus  being  slow  to  degrade  if not  exposed  to sunlight (uv) can persist  for  a very long  time. Plus because of  the  relatively  small  mass are  not  considered  to  be a   viable (profitable)  recyclable item.

Biodegradable (?)  plastic  films   actually  do  not   "bio  degrade"  but  fractionate  into  smaller  particles  which  in turn  impact  on  soil or  water composition  and continue  to  pollute  the  ecosystem by  interrupting   the  habitat  of   important   microorganisms. Beach  sand  now  contains  an increasing  amount  of  such   particles  in  countries  that   boast   environmental  protections but  suffer   increasing  losses  of  coastal environmental  health.

"Plastics" in  origin   were  originally  derived  from  cellulose or  even milk   casein but had  the  problem  of  true incremental biodegradable instability. 

The   development  of  plastics  now  clothes  the  world  and  even has  become  a  sickening component of food products.

Vehicles,  machinery, and  even  the   electronic  toys  we  use  are   encased in  sophisticated plastics.

The  one  thing  we   would  suffer  less  inconvenience  in  not  having  is  the  polythene plastic   bag!

 

[shackleton]

Comments on here about 7/11 and Malls ect giving out plastic bags for the shopping no one is forcing you to take them 

if you are happy to take your own bag for the shopping 

set a example and be happy you are doing your bit for the environment

[Jonmarleesco]

Unbelievable that Thais see foreign visitors/residents as the culprits.

[wakeupplease]

13 hours ago, Lingba said:

Good for the Univ of Georgia for rubbing their face into the truth...its time to wake up, get off your self centered greedy lazy asses and do something to contribute to protecting and caring for the very land and water that provides for you

Na this is Thailand the land of Smiles and shed loads of trash we are happy, says our pm, its all the dam tourists fault