Bottled water makers welcome cap seal ban

[rooster59]

Bottled water makers welcome cap seal ban

By Pratch Rujivanarom 
THE SUNDAY NATION 

 

 

Thai bottled water producers have responded well to a plan to stop using cap seals, which will not only decrease plastic waste but also reduce unnecessary production costs.

 

In a campaign kicking off today, the Pollution Control Department (PCD plans to totally abandon the use of cap seals on bottled water by the end of 2019. Five giant bottled water producers have already answered the call, while many smaller bottle water companies across the country are following suit.

 

The five major water bottled companies that have stopped using cap seal in their products are Boon Rawd Trading, Sermsuk Plc, Thai Drink, Nestle Thai, and Carabao Group.

 

Sermsuk announced on its website that as one of the leaders in the bottled water business, it was aware of the importance of cooperation from the business sector in tackling the plastic waste problem by helping the authorities decrease unnecessary plastic usage.

 

 

The company said that every product that comes out of its production line from today would be without a cap seal.

 

Sermsuk assured the public that even without a cap seal, its product quality would remain high because the production process was the same.

 

It’s not only the big players in the market that have embraced the campaign. SMEs in the bottled water industry, which number more than 2,000 operators and brands across the country, are also happy to participate.

 

The managing director of the Hima brand, Aim Chato, said his small enterprise had also joined the PCD campaign.

 

“We have heard the authorities’ policy to stop using cap seal and we are very happy to comply with this new regulation, as we also want to save the environment and decrease plastic waste,” Aim said.

 

He added that this policy not only helped the environment, but also benefited business operators. Stopping the use of cap seals would decrease his company’s production costs up to Bt2,000 per production lot of 20,000 bottles.

 

“We also sure that without the cap seal, consumers will still have high confidence in our product, because we have high quality production standards that ensure that our bottled water is clean. They are similar standards to those of the top water brands,” he added.

 

Meanwhile, Wanchai Srithongkham, a food safety expert from the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), said that the Public Health Ministry required bottled water to have certification from the FDA to ensure it passed both quality and safety standards.

 

Wanchai said that a cap seal was not a requirement under the ministry’s regulations, so even without the seal consumers could be sure that any FDA-certified product was safe for consumption.

 

PCD director-general Sunee Piyapanpong said earlier that the elimination of cap seals on bottled water was part of a mission to reduce plastic waste as a whole.

 

This was because the seals were made from polyvinyl chloride plastic, which is very small and thin. This makes it very hard to collect and recycle, meaning that most of it ended up littering the environment and causing many subsequent problems to the ecosystem, Sunee said.

 

According to the PCD, about 4.4 billion bottles of water are produced in Thailand every year, and 60 per cent of them have cap seals, generating 2.6 billion pieces of small plastic waste annually.

 

By implementing a total cap seal ban by the end of next year, Thailand can reduce up to 520 tonnes of unnecessary plastic waste.

 

Countries that have already abandoned the use of cap seals include Malaysia, Indonesia, Singapore, China, South Korea, Japan, and most European nations.

 

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/detail/national/30342183

 

 

-- © Copyright The Nation 2018-04-01

[nausea]

Mmmm, what day is it today?

[madmitch]

38 minutes ago, nausea said:

Mmmm, what day is it today?

Ah, the one day of the year when you might disbelieve posts on TV.

 

But I think you might have chosen the wrong post to be fooled by!

[wgdanson]

2 hours ago, rooster59 said:

the elimination of cap seals on bottled water was part of a mission to reduce plastic waste as a whole.

And where will the bottle go ?    Just seen that a deposit system will be introduced in UK. Can you imaging that working in Thailand?

[jamie2009]

What’s to stop an unscrupulous person refilling the bottle with tap water and reselling it ?

[luk AJ]

What’s to stop an unscrupulous person refilling the bottle with tap water and reselling it ?

It’s about the extra transparant seal, the cap itself has it’s own seal which you break when opened.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

[jamie2009]

1 minute ago, luk AJ said:

It’s about the extra transparant seal, the cap itself has it’s own seal which you break when opened.


Sent from my iPhone using Thailand Forum - Thaivisa mobile app

Ok thanks for clarifying my post.

[geriatrickid]

9 minutes ago, jamie2009 said:

What’s to stop an unscrupulous person refilling the bottle with tap water and reselling it ?

Nothing and that is why it will be done. Thailand will not act to stop such activity.

[siamcrut]

What’s to stop an unscrupulous person refilling the bottle with tap water and reselling it ?

Thailand had this problem more then a decade ago.
You could not buy water bottles on trains, because the vendor refilled them most of the time.
Now back to square one.

[wgdanson]

4 hours ago, wgdanson said:

the elimination of cap seals on bottled water was part of a mission to reduce plastic waste as a whole.

These cap seals are a p..s in the ocean. What about the kilometers of brown parcel tape used and discarded by the Post and courier systems, and the kilometers of cling film wrapped around suitcases at the airports. Was on the BTS in Bkk last week. What happens to all the used tickets. All plastic.

Edited April 1, 2018 by wgdanson

[theguyfromanotherforum]

Another useless initiative.

 

 

[Darcula]

8 hours ago, rooster59 said:

abandon the use of cap seals on bottled water

No problem, as long as I can get 4 straws with every bottle.

[Krataiboy]

Good news for us golden oldies with fingers like bunches of bananas.

[Puccini]

I already bought some bottled water without the silly plastic seal when I was in Bangkok last month, but I can't remember if it had another type of pilfer-proof cap like the one on this bottle in Italy:

 

[lou62]

They should just get rid of plastic bottles altogether.

Glass bottles do  the same job and perhaps introduce return of bottle get 5 Bt cash.

People wouldn't leave them lying if around if there was an incentive to return them.

 

[Puccini]

Here it is:

Edited April 1, 2018 by Puccini

[janclaes47]

7 minutes ago, Puccini said:

I already bought some bottled water without the silly plastic seal when I was in Bangkok last month, but I can't remember if it had another type of pilfer-proof cap like the one on this bottle in Italy:

 

 

As far as I'm aware all bottles with the silly plastic seal, as you like to call it, always had also the pilfer proof cap, so they had double protection all that time.

 

So why would they remove the pilfer proof now?

 

Namthip, a coca cola company, hasn't had the plastic seal since ages, and also isn't filled to the very top of the bottle as with all those Thai companies so you can open the bottle without messing up the kitchen.

[connda]

Now, if the bottlers would stop wasting plastic by only filling the bottles up to 85% of capacity.  Responsible bottlers would use smaller bottles and stop wasting plastic.
"But they are celebrating that they will not be wasting plastic with the new plastic cover ban!!!"
Right.

 

Edited April 1, 2018 by connda

[sensei]

There's a thousand times more plastic in the bottle itself that they seem to be overlooking.

[Artisi]

11 hours ago, wgdanson said:

And where will the bottle go ?    Just seen that a deposit system will be introduced in UK. Can you imaging that working in Thailand?

Have a look at the recycle yards in thailand and you will see just how many bottles do get recycled. 

However still too many get dropped wherever the last mouthful was taken.

 

[Artisi]

7 hours ago, jamie2009 said:

What’s to stop an unscrupulous person refilling the bottle with tap water and reselling it ?

No,  that the pilfer proof break-off cap that stops the unscrupulous. 

[fantom]

Recently on a visit to a home stay at a large sea water estuary near Chantaburi, as we traveled by long tail to our destination, we passed massed fields of floating tethered plastic bottles used as floats for what I was told were oyster growing tethers.There were many rafts of thousands of these in what can only be described as fields.  These were used water and other similar bottles.

 

I had a number of thoughts about this. firstly the oysters, filter feeders, are feeding in a gentle cascade of disintegrating plastic bottle, and also wondering what happened  to all of those thousands of bottles when they finally sank.

I used to enjoy the occasional oyster.
 

[ericthai]

9 hours ago, jamie2009 said:

What’s to stop an unscrupulous person refilling the bottle with tap water and reselling it ?

people have already done this. they put their own seals on the bottles. 

[chickenslegs]

2 hours ago, sensei said:

There's a thousand times more plastic in the bottle itself that they seem to be overlooking.

True. But the bottles tend to get collected and recycled.

The seals tend to be discarded without any thought and just end up blowing around in the breeze.

[Puccini]

8 hours ago, janclaes47 said:

As far as I'm aware all bottles with the silly plastic seal, as you like to call it, always had also the pilfer proof cap, so they had double protection all that time.

 

Now that you mention it I realise you are right. I remember that with some bottles, after taking off the plastic seal I had difficulty unscrewing the cap and I had to use a knife to cut the connectors between the cap and the ring below it. Therefore, for all I know the bottle I photographed also had a plastic seal.

[Eaglekott]

On 4/1/2018 at 8:08 AM, wgdanson said:

And where will the bottle go ?    Just seen that a deposit system will be introduced in UK. Can you imaging that working in Thailand?

Most are actually recycled. The plastic bottles it usually purchased by people passing on the streets with their bikes. Same with paper, glass and metal.

[Eaglekott]

21 hours ago, lou62 said:

They should just get rid of plastic bottles altogether.

Glass bottles do  the same job and perhaps introduce return of bottle get 5 Bt cash.

People wouldn't leave them lying if around if there was an incentive to return them.

 

Actually there is a 2 Baht return for each glass bottle that is brought back to the brewery. The collecting people will offer you 1 Baht for each bottle if you ask.

[Eaglekott]

23 hours ago, wgdanson said:

Was on the BTS in Bkk last week. What happens to all the used tickets. All plastic.

Most is reused, I believe its only the "One day pass" that most people never buy that is not reused.

[fantom]

On 4/1/2018 at 8:08 AM, wgdanson said:

And where will the bottle go ?    Just seen that a deposit system will be introduced in UK. Can you imaging that working in Thailand?

Very good question, I have seen where a frightening number go and it is not pretty, see my post 22.

[billd766]

On 01/04/2018 at 8:08 AM, wgdanson said:

And where will the bottle go ?    Just seen that a deposit system will be introduced in UK. Can you imaging that working in Thailand?

 

When I were a lad in the UK during the 1950's there were no plastic bottles but all the glass pop and beer bottles had a deposit on them. We used to collect them and take them back. Sometimes we would sneak into the back yard of the pub, pinch a few and sell them back. Master criminals we were then.

 

In Germany in the 1970's the supermarkets would charge a deposit on bottles and crates which you got back on returning them. I was honest by then.

 

In Thailand now I just collect all the glass and plastic bottles, paper, cardboard etc and a scavenger comes about once a month to take it away. I generally make 40 or 50 baht this way.