SPECIAL REPORT: Alarm raised as Thailand drowns in plastic trash

[Graemej100]

No shit Sherlock. You've only just realized it? Wow. 

[Ulic]

I bring my reusable grocery bags from Canada when I am in Thailand. Between my backpack and the

reusable bags no need for Thai grocery plastic bags. As for plastic bottles they seem to be recycled.

When I watch the garbage truck pick up at the condo where I stay they sort through everything

before leaving. Most residents sort out the recyclable items to help. It is the littering that drives me

crazy. 

[Cadbury]

2 minutes ago, Tradewind777 said:

In NZ there is an initiative to recycle plastic. Councils are conscripted to buy recycled plastic products and commercial competition is now appearing. This involves innovation, planning and incentivisation of which there is a paucity in the LoS unfortunately.

Meanwhile in Australia they are dropping recycling because it is too costly. It now goes into landfill. Before a lot of the recycling material in Australia was shipped to China but they have now banned the importation. In Thailand it seems to be left in huge above ground dumps to sit there forever; or thrown into the sea, whichever is easier.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-19/queensland-council-recycling-dump-to-start-nationwide-reaction/9673370

[Estrada]

Fact 1: Plastics have been around since 1856, not 50 years as stated in this article. Secondly all plastics can be recycled. Greenpeace focuses on shopping bags and straws, whilst the real problem is mainly with product packaging such as for food, washing powder, shampoos, takeaway foods. The worst offenders are those plastic cold drinks containers which are disposed of without thought, still containing polluting liquids. Another problem is that under storm conditions, uncollected waste and waste bins get knocked over and all the waste ends up in the drains, khlongs and eventually the sea. I helped write the Bangkok Solid Waste Master Plan 20 years ago which contains all the necessary methods to deal with solid waste including recycling, composting, incineration, waste encapsulation, waste to energy even turning plastic waste into plastic cable ducts, paving slabs and so on. The problem here and even in Australia where there are fines if you do not place your waste into the proper bins, is that most of the population refuse to cooperate. I am the only one in our housing estate of 126 families, who separates my waste using those plastic shopping bags to separate into wet waste, cans and plastics, food packing, and hazardous waste. I do not have any plastic shopping bags left over afterwards, due to the sheer volume of packaging waste and I do not have to buy bin bags. If I did not use the shopping bags to protect the waste, the neighbours would just be dumping all their food waste on top and making it difficult to separate at the waste transfer station. After 20 years the BMA has just got around to installing waste incinerators, not sure if they are going to fix the composting systems first because the incinerators cannot burn wet waste.

[zzidenn]

3 hours ago, kannot said:

Very simple, 90% of Thais dont give a (insert expletive of choice here) drive round by me and watch all and every piece of crap fly out of the car windows and off motorbikes. They buy a drink with ice  and drink it on the bike and when finished.........off the back, young kids learn easy too.

Go to the beach on a Sunday watch them all sitting under a tree, mass of  bottles and bags styrofoam, come back in the evening and there it all sits mounting up, blowing round in the breeze, feeelthy dirty LAZY PIGS.

 Think it’s hard to implement these ideas without the help of the government. In Europe only after a few laws where passed it all got into motion. Foam has been banned by law for years and the big ones like McDonald’s etc. had no choice but to follow, just recently retailers have been prohibited under harsh fines to give out plastic bags for free, ever since people rather bring their own than spending a few cents on bags. This is how it is done and works

Same goes for household garbage recycling, etc. ( in Germany the recycling bin is free of charge, so is the paper and glass bin, all other (unsorted) garbage has to be paid for) 

You can’t blame the people, blame the lawmakers, blame the leaders of this country who don’t want to change. They have to be the good example and thought leaders.

[LukDod]

Impose a progressive moratorium banning the use or sale of single-use (non-biodegradable) plastic bags. This might be difficult here due to the levels of known corruption (police, etc.)
Begin with prohibiting their use by the large retailers and progressively work down to smaller retailers,
the manufacturers and individuals. Implement proportionate fines/penalties. Many countries have instituted laws prohibiting single-use bags. Denmark has had laws in place since 1998, others now have laws addressing the issue with greatly varying levels of effectiveness. Most draconian is Kenya which recently imposed what may be the toughest sanctions against plastic bag use. Producing, selling
or even using plastic bags now carries penalties of up to four years in jail or a fine.

[Cadbury]

1 hour ago, gr8fldanielle said:

make your plastic out of hemp oil and they instantly become biodegradable and a huge percentage of the problem solved. Why the need to use toxic petroleum products I'll never know. Maybe they should train the staff not to use too many bags at supermarkets. I bought a liter of whipping cream, two packages of cheese and a bottle of wine. Wine in one bag, cheese in another, and the whipping cream in a third. Needless to say I put it all in one bag and left the two on the counter probably to be thrown away as they were "used". Really hard to change the clueless.

Bio-degradable plastics may not necessarily be the answer. I know it is a Guardian story but maybe by chance there is an element of unbiased truth in it.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/may/23/biodegradable-plastic-false-solution-for-ocean-waste-problem

[Easy Come Easy Go]

it is't ingrained into the society here to not only recycle willingly, but to dispose of rubbish in a decent manner. People just toss things anywhere, even riding a bike along the road they will toss stuff somewhere. Not sure which generation is going to wise up and change this, but it needs to happen; it's disgusting 

[SymS]

Quote

But we did not see it, as it did not appear to our eyes

What? Anywhere you go in Thailand it's full of trash for anyone to see. People even throw packages or plastic bag in their own backyard, and they don't seem to care. We have a shared road with three homes where we live, and I can easily fill a large black plastic bag every month just with plastic waste.

 

I guess this cannot be fixed with adults, but a long term plan would be to educate children to dispose of trash properly. Recycling would be the next step, but maybe it's too much to ask. Thai people don't like dirty things, but for most of them plastic trash everywhere is not a problem, it's not dirty.

[madmitch]

5 minutes ago, zzidenn said:

 Think it’s hard to implement these ideas without the help of the government. In Europe only after a few laws where passed it all got into motion. Foam has been banned by law for years and the big ones like McDonald’s etc. had no choice but to follow, just recently retailers have been prohibited under harsh fines to give out plastic bags for free, ever since people rather bring their own than spending a few cents on bags. This is how it is done and works

Same goes for household garbage recycling, etc. ( in Germany the recycling bin is free of charge, so is the paper and glass bin, all other (unsorted) garbage has to be paid for) 

You can’t blame the people, blame the lawmakers, blame the leaders of this country who don’t want to change. They have to be the good example and thought leaders.

Add the influential business owners to the politicians as well. I think many would agree that 7-Eleven is among the worst for propagating plastic waste: plastic straws in plastic wrappers; plastic spoons in plastic wrappers; plastic bags for the tiniest purchases. Add Family Mart and you have the two richest families in Thailand almost promoting the use of unnecessary plastic.

[Lupatria]

In case you are unaware of this:

 

• There is six times more plastic than plankton in the oceans.
• Polyester bags are the most environmentally friendly alternative, not paper bags!
• On Roosevelt Island in New York the garbage is collected by vacuum pipes. There are no garbage trucks.
• There is so much garbage on Mount Everest that mountaineers who return too little garbage have to pay a fine.
• In Bath, England, there are garbage cans that tell the garbage collector when they have to emptied.
• Humanity has left behind 180 tons of garbage on the moon.
• There are no round pizza boxes, because the production would produce too much expensive waste.

Edited May 6, 2018 by Lupatria

[Estrada]

1 hour ago, Nickymaster said:

This can only be taken care of at government level. Prohibit 7/11, Big C , Tesco etc etc from giving out plastic bags and things will at least improve. BUT the big rich bosses from those supermarket chains DON'T care what happens to the environment because they only care about PROFIT. And the government seems to be controlled by the elite and the consumer doesn't care. Soooo, what are we worrying about?!

 

 

It is not that the rich bosses do not care, it is the general public. Tesco have pushed customers to use reusable bags which they sold at low cost, but the majority of customers don't want them. Villa Supermarkets use shopping bags which oxidise rapidly so they are environmentally friendly. Macro (same owner as 7/11) do not give out bags so that you have to bring your own bags. 20 years ago, I started a bring your bag project at Printemps Supermarket at Seri Centre and again, few customers would cooperate.

[ianglover]

This... !

They will also put it in a plastic bag unless you stop them.

 

 

[bubba45]

Whenever I see a story like this it reminds me of the movie The Graduate. 

[Dustdevil]

We sorely need alternatives, starting with supermarkets and restaurants. I remember many years ago when the burger joints did away with styrofoam burger containers and replaced them with thin cardboard. Now that wasn't so hard, was it? The burgers taste the same. Supermarkets in the 1950s through about 1978 or so packed your groceries in paper bags. Now that wasn't so horrible, was it? It's actually easier to carry the paper bags. In Houston I always asked for paper bags. Just do away with the plastic ones. That's not so hard now, is it? These are the easiest and most obvious places to start. Hard plastic on devices and objects--well, what can I say--replace wherever possible with something else. But the retail industry is the place to start. Those plastic islands would probably reduce in size tremendously.

[Bangkok Barry]

2 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

Back in the late 60's I was on Ellesmere Island  in the high arctic and scientists from England came to where I was. One of them told me that England was on its way to being covered in plastic. She stated that people do not comprehend plastic is not bio degradeable Once it is there it is there for ever.Now the world is being covered in plastic. But hey we need plastic phones,cars half plastic,toys,furniture,computers etc all plastic. Plastic is cheap to produce things with. Until we find a cheaper way to produce crap will be made with plastic.. Plastic is the curse of consumer  societies.

 

I'm a little confused about plastic not being bio-degradable. At my house I have stored many things in a spare room in plastic bags, mostly from Big C, and after a couple of years I touch them and they crumble to a fine dust. So there's plastic, and there's plastic.

[Dustdevil]

16 minutes ago, Estrada said:

It is not that the rich bosses do not care, it is the general public. Tesco have pushed customers to use reusable bags which they sold at low cost, but the majority of customers don't want them. Villa Supermarkets use shopping bags which oxidise rapidly so they are environmentally friendly. Macro (same owner as 7/11) do not give out bags so that you have to bring your own bags. 20 years ago, I started a bring your bag project at Printemps Supermarket at Seri Centre and again, few customers would cooperate.

That's weird. In the States all the supermarkets sell medium and large-sized shopping bags. They're so much more convenient--you can carry three plastic bags' worth of stuff in one reusable bag. What's not to like? I keep one or two in my trunk (boot, most of you call it) all the time.

[Jimdandy]

4 hours ago, rooster59 said:

“The plastic problem is actually serious, just like other global environmental problems. But we did not see it, as it did not appear to our eyes – not until recent years,” said Tara.

 

 

So are you saying seeing is believing or you don't know how to read, especially reports from other areas in the world that are facing the same crisis? Maybe you have never heard of this problem before because you are hard of hearing?

[stanleycoin]

4 hours ago, kannot said:

 

Go to the beach on a Sunday watch them all sitting under a tree, mass of  bottles and bags styrofoam, come back in the evening and there it all sits mounting up, blowing round in the breeze, feeelthy dirty LAZY PIGS.

That just about sums it up. 

[overherebc]

18 minutes ago, Dustdevil said:

That's weird. In the States all the supermarkets sell medium and large-sized shopping bags. They're so much more convenient--you can carry three plastic bags' worth of stuff in one reusable bag. What's not to like? I keep one or two in my trunk (boot, most of you call it) all the time.

Just for info.

UK call it a boot from the stagecoach days. See att.

In USA it was generally a trunk fixed on the back of the stagecoach. ??

[timber]

In British Columbia have three options 1. Bring your own bag. 2. Get a brown paper bag.  3. Get a plastic bag.

[mok199]

Thailand is drowning in alarms ..air quality ,corruption,road carnage,water quality,ocean pollution.,education failure ,teen pregnancy etc etc..the alarms fall on deaf old fosils ears ...who fing it more important to buy used military hardware and submarines

[bbbbooboo]

hmmm.... this situation has been self evident to me for at least the last 10 years. TIT

[sawadee1947]

So the future will be easy when it comes to eat fish.

You don't need to by a fish at any fish monger but eat a piece of plastic??

[Lucky mike]

Nothing changed here ! Zero care and even less responsibility......

[anon4637435435]

My wife bought 1 big bottle of water from 7-11 yesterday and that was all she got. It was put in 2bags for strength and 12straws put in the bag. 

Maybe the good pm should implement a new law. For anyone giving out excess plastic gets to wear a plastic bag on there head and ziptied at the neck.

Thats progress.....

[Guest Jerry787]

It will be so easy any plastic coming from oil, 350% tax, bio mass plastic coming from natural fibers 0% tax as well incentives taken from the plastic tax to use natural products.

make ppl pay serious money for plastic and no one will trash it easily anymore.

[dracokedavro]

I wonder if Thailand has strong environmental laws? In Bangkok alone, where it gets flood almost on every soi there is, people just do not realize the impact of plastic. From the street vendors of milk tea, sliced fruits and pad thai, to 711 and Family Mart all the way to supermarkets of Big C, Lotus and Tops. 

And should I mention Thai's obsession with straws? You buy one small Yakult, they'll give you a straw. A half litre of water with a straw, 3 big bottles of water, 3 straws. 

Me learning Mai Aw, Mai Dai is very useful. 

[marquis22]

4 hours ago, Oziex1 said:

This is global problem not just a Thai problem.

True, but living in two countries I have noticed Thailand is a more of a plastic dump than Australia.

I see more roadside plastic dumped alongside Thai roads as compared to Australian roads.

[Cranky]

I would think that having all that rubbish in one place presents an excellent opportunity to scoop it all up in go and deal with it.   Bit like Pattaya.