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

[drgoon]

It's official....

 

Thailand, the world hub of pollution.

[David Walden]

19 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. 

Makro will not let you take a modest size back pack into their shops.  What hope is there of fixing this problem with this rule.  I'm quite happy to empty the bag completely at the checkout...but no.

 

PS...Big C will let you take a backpack in as long as you let them inspect it at the checkout.

[David Walden]

13 hours 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!!

That's because these bag are hopelessly poor quality.  If you fill them up they fall apart before you can get to the door let alone get home so lots more bags are used.  You can always have a joke with the checkout chicks about this.  This suggest that management hasn't got a clue what goes on a the coal face.  They are usually accountants or lawyers and know nothing about grocery shopping.

[seminomadic]

YES! Continue to raise awareness of this serious problem!!

[David Walden]

11 hours ago, curlylekan said:

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

Take a walk along Cha-am Beach Road  any Sunday and you will see restaurants and street vendors empting there rubbish next the council provided bins.  The bins are just overflowing with private and mostly industrial waste.   TIT

[Humpy]

...and what about the other polluters ? ....... lorries with dustbin sized exhausts belching clouds of smoke together with the associated noise . Similarly brain dead gofers on motorcycles with their modified exhausts that can be heard two kilometers away. Students, three to a motorcycle, each busy drinking with a straw throw their empty plastic cups into the roadside about a kilometer after leaving the  school gates.

[ToddinChonburi]

Recycling program desperately needed.

[marquis22]

20 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. 

When in Bkk and shop at a regular mini-mart the chicks still laugh each time I produce my reusable bag :-)

[elephant45]

Here is what my condo looks like at the trash bins. Looks pretty clean to me!

[ryane66]

It is not just the plastic bags or polluted beaches.Some use the ditches along the highways and roads to dump garbage and renovation refuse. Turning this beautiful country into the world's largest garbage dump. Why not the same system they use in Bangkok to get motorbikes off the sidewalks. Have citizens take pictures of the offenders and share the fine. Also why not use none dangerous prisoners clean up the roadways. They do that in my home country and it works well.

[David Walden]

1 hour ago, elephant45 said:

Here is what my condo looks like at the trash bins. Looks pretty clean to me!

AAAHHH...That's nothing you should the rubbish at Cattareya Condotel in Cha-am.

[01322521959]

I always take a bag out with me. Always have trouble telling the shop assistant to please put the shopping in it. Also cause a bit of a hold up packing stuff myself at Tescos. I tend to make it very obvious that I am using my own bags. Thais seem to notice when I produce 2 smelly white plastic bags I've had for about 5 years. Er'indoors says she won't go shopping if I take them when we go together. Hey Ho!

[01322521959]

21 hours ago, steve2112 said:

8, more like 80. 1 baht tax per bag would stop it in a day

It did the job in the UK. Brother in law takes bags with him to avoid paying 10 pence. He didn't give a toss in 2014 ..

[elephant45]

Here is Kasetsart University up at Bhubing Palace research Station doing their part to destroy the environment. Picture taken today.

[CLW]

Here is Kasetsart University up at Bhubing Palace research Station doing their part to destroy the environment. Picture taken today.

This thread is about plastic and not burning.
Also I can't see clearly from the picture if they are just workers doing their job.
As with many other things, if they don't know or have been told to do so they continue like it always was.
That's why there is still stand and progress in this country.
Vietnam soon overtaking Thailand in terms of technology and economy

[hawker9000]

I am usually the last to advocate almost any kind of tax, but the prevailing Thai me-first mentality simply doesn't auger well for anti-pollution efforts, and that's culturally embedded.   A baht or two per bag would undoubtedly discourage the habit.  (Stiff fines, widely & reliably enforced, for littering would work even better, but we know that's never going to happen, except maybe vs "rich" farangs who most likely won't even be guilty of it)  But Thailand's problem with this stems as much from lack of litter disposal & collection facility as it does from personal habit.  There's usually simply nowhere to throw one's trash.   A westerner, conditioned to almost always having a trashbin within spitting distance in public areas, doesn't think of just dropping the bag or fast food refuse, and will usually make an effort to find a trash receptacle even if he has to go out of his way to find one, or either carry the stuff back to his room or home & dispose of it there, or in case of the bags reuse them for household trash or some other purpose, but this way of thinking apparently just never enters a local's mind.  'Easier to just throw it down and let somebody else deal with it.  But even plain thoughtlessness isn't the extent of it.  Household trash getting taken out & deliberately dumped and accumulating in ugly heaps here & there around town demonstrates that Thais simply don't care about where their litter and trash ends up and the eyesores & hazards it creates as long as it's not their own living room.  Under those conditions, I guess it takes a tax...

 

[chado]

agree

On 11/2/2017 at 12:59 PM, webfact said:

The plastic bags that the Thais use and throw out each year would wrap four times around the earth.

agree! in each 7-11 I'm given a bag which in turn is put in another bag. And all that in one more bag, just in case.

[chado]

that drives me crazy.

coconut -- also in a bag!

[ianwheldale]

Two things........

1. Most supermarkets I use in Chiang Mai use far more bags than is necessary. Educate the checkout staff please.

2. Charging for bags in the UK reduced the usage by 85%. Simple solution that works.

[rickudon]

I bought a fabric bag from Teco UK over 10 years ago. Still going strong, and probably used over 500 times.

[hawker9000]

The thing about reusable bags is forgetting to take them with you!   You're in the store and queuing for checkout when you realize it. 

[travelman6]

Yes, I clean up in front of my home, almost daily.  Plastic bags, pop bottles and cans, empty food wraps, and you name it and I have actually stood in my driveway and watch them standing by a garbage can and throwing their garbage on the ground.  The only thing that will solve this problem is education and it needs to start in school at the 1 st grade level and it will take several generations to clean it up.  Fines for littering will also help.

[observer90210]

Many supermarkets in some european countries plainly stopped giving out bags a few years ago.

 

The large retail groups were glad to contribute in reducing pollution but mainly glad not to endure the expense of providing free plastic bags

 

On the other hand, many including myself were using the bags as a substitute to the regular black plastic bags for trash.

 

It was a practical way to dispose of the bags in using them as disposals for thrash, instead of plainly throwing them empty in the thrash collectors.

 

But what about other uses of plastic in retail grocery shopping ? In some large grocery outlets when I buy certain boxed fruits or veggies, I have an impression that I am purchasing the latest iMac computer, so much paking and padding there is !!!

 

The issue is global and not just Thai related (for the sceptical).

[RandG]

On ‎02‎/‎11‎/‎2017 at 3:43 PM, slippery snake said:

Difference is most westerners dispose of the bags properly, as they probably own a condo or are staying in a hotel,

but Thais just throw their rubbish over the fence,, out of sight, out of mind...  

I've seen it time and again, but never see anyone do that at the apartment block where I live,  except for the Thai security guard that throws his rubbish over the fence....  

Must be great to be so perfect.

 

The key word is "dispose" of. Why not just use recyclable bags in the first place.?

[DinoSabanovic]

Well, I had a situation here. My wife bought a house. Owner of the village lives 100m from the village in a house. So in total new house is 200m from the owners home. I had to drive a CAR to pick up owner. Like, WT*? I still cant wrap my head around it.

[wakeupplease]

Stop moaning get on with it, we will never change Will We?

[dieseldave1951]

On 02/11/2017 at 1:47 PM, nobodysfriend said:

What's your problem...?

i think he is joking ????????

[elephant45]

India outlawed plastic bags, but not cow dung. They use newspaper to wrap everything so there is newspaper piles everywhere, but no plastic. I am now in Morocco, very clean, no plastic bags anywhere. Was just in Medellin Colombia, also very clean, but bad air pollution and getting worse. Its really not that hard to implement this, but it seems like loss of face if a local does not get two bags, two straws then another bag to put all that in. Its humiliating to them. I agree with whomever wrote that it starts in first grade, but actually, I think the country is doomed. It's really gotten out of control with traffic, pollution, of all sorts etc.