More garbage burning due to raised fees

[RamenRaven]

This month, my area of Saraphi raised garbage collection fees from 15 baht for 2 trash bags to 10 baht for one trash bag / 20 baht for 2 trash bags. As a result, garbage burning has greatly increased in my neighborhood.

 

In August, the burning smelled of tree branches due to the longan harvest season.

Now the smell has completely changed. It's obviously mostly plastic. The smell is even nastier as it's not organic stuff.

 

I cannot understand this mentality. Raise the price of garbage bags by 2.5 baht per bag and everybody thinks it's better to burn trash instead? It's not like these people are extremely short on spare change. Laborers here all make at least 300 baht per day. They all find some way to get those 45-baht bottles of Chang beer and 23-baht bags of khanom jin.

 

2.5 baht is the equivalent of 8 US cents or 6 British pence. Imagine everyone in a quaint little English village starting to burn garbage en masse and becoming filled with the acrid smell of burning plastic because the town council decided to increase fees by 6 pence.

 

This makes no sense to me. A Thai friend told me that I should not offer to pay for their garbage fees, since that would make them "lose face." Thai neighbors want to be seen by everyone as responsible, self-sufficient well-to-do people who are not approached with such demeaning requests. Complaining to the local authorities would also result in them becoming extremely angry since they would ask around for the tattleteller who made them "lose face."

 

I then read some online articles about open waste burning. These articles say that trash burning occurs in areas where people have no option but to burn due to limited services and poor infrastructure. But in this area of Chiang Mai, a big garbage truck comes out every Monday to collect garbage, and we are living out here on a main road with lots of traffic and good infrastructure.
 

You can sweat through the heat and humidity, you can chase away dogs with rocks and sticks, and so forth, but you can't live in a nasty gas chamber without losing your health and sanity. I had to install an air conditioner with 3M Filtrete filters and seal my whole house because every time I open the doors or windows a little bit, I cannot breathe properly. I can't even step outside for a 5-minute walk because it's basically a gas chamber outside every afternoon from at least around 5-7 pm - oftentimes also earlier and later than that time range. I don't enjoy being a prisoner of my own environment. If I have to simply go for a short walk to get in a little bit of exercise, I have to drive 20 minutes over to the Hang Dong / Mae Hia area because the outskirts of Saraphi have become unbreathable. I'm not sure if going back to the wildfire smoke-plagued part of the Western US where I'm originally from would be any better.

 

What's going on through these Thai trash burners' minds? I don't understand.

 

[eyecatcher]

This is Thai mentality....

I took the wife to one of those money tree collections last week in a very small remote village in san patong.

She had a pile of envelopes that she had hawked around, for the building of yet another temple outbuilding, again in the middle of nowhere.

I refused to go to the collection  ceremony on grounds that it was immoral but the wife and her two friends had collected 10k bt.

 

All told she said there was about a 100 people prancing about and the word was that those people had in just a few days raised 1.2million!!!!

 

Thats disgusting.

And away from the temples they plead poverty.

 

Make no doubt about it, they have more money than most of us.

 

Ps I am in Saraphi also, dont pay anything for bag collection because they refuse to take the truck down a cul de sac.

[BritManToo]

No problems in San Sai, garbage collected 2x a week by the Amphur for 300bht/year (or was it 360bht?).

[canthai55]

Our village - weekly by Tessaban - free

[ChakaKhan]

I have been smelling some burning in old city and nearby...not sure what thats about either.....

 

Ah the concept of FACE...the reason will NEVER move forward..go ahead and blame everyone else

 

Up to u!

[RamenRaven]

Check out AirVisual (Chiang Mai AQI Ranking box on the center right).

 

Grace International School and Lanna International School, both in Saraphi, always have the worst AQI rankings at night since nighttime inversion patterns trap the burning smoke from all the hundreds (or thousands) of households unnecessarily burning waste. Payap and Chang Phueak are up next. But Saraphi tops the list.

 

https://www.airvisual.com/thailand/chiang-mai

 

CMU CDD also has good data. Sarapee Hospital has some of the worst air pollution. Hang Dong Hospital and Samoeng Hospital can also get pretty bad.

 

https://www.cmuccdc.org/opendata/haze

 

Thai news outlets like to blame faceless corporations and faraway hill tribes. But they won't admit that their next-door neighbors are doing it. I know who is burning stuff, and that includes the idiot neighbors right in front of my house. No one dares complain because this is a country where loss of face means the offended party makes sure you'll go to the cemetery ten times. Thais feel like they have the right to do whatever they want to do as long as it doesn't make them lose face (look bad). They will sometimes completely trash up their back yards but will keep their front yards spotlessly clean to make themselves look good. They would rather pollute the air than pollute the ground because the former would not make you lose face in Thai thinking.

 

So there's nothing anyone can really do.

 

 

Edited November 24, 2018 by RamenRaven

[Thailand]

10 hours ago, canthai55 said:

Our village - weekly by Tessaban - free

Daily in our Moo Baan, included in mgt fees which are low anyway.

 

But of course the rain has stopped so burning begins, it's not going to get better in the coming months.

[colinneil]

Here we have a great service, monday morning around 10 rubbish collected, thursday morning around 10 rubbish collected, all for a measly 240 per year.

[Fookhaht]

We also have regular garbage service in our small Isaan district. What’s more, it’s FREE. Yet, the neighbors prefer to burn. From 5-7pm, the toxic smoke hangs like a thick, choking fog everywhere. My Thai friend explained: “It’s to chase away the mosquitoes.” I still get bitten.


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[canthai55]

Want to stop burning garbage ? Impose fees for returnable containers at the retail level. Outlaw plastic bags and non biodegradable containers. Hit 'em in the wallet - as has been done with some success in the West. If people can make $$$ they will do it. If not - Lazy Triumphs

[cmsally]

2 hours ago, Fookhaht said:

We also have regular garbage service in our small Isaan district. What’s more, it’s FREE. Yet, the neighbors prefer to burn. From 5-7pm, the toxic smoke hangs like a thick, choking fog everywhere. My Thai friend explained: “It’s to chase away the mosquitoes.” I still get bitten.


Sent from my iPhone using Thaivisa Connect

Tell your friend that traditionally Thais burn citrus peel to chase away the mosquitoes.

[ChrisKC]

My rubbish is collected by an official and specialised vehicle 3 times per week in Lampang. A man comes round every month to collect B20 for which I get a proper receipt.

[RamenRaven]

We know that garbage collection is cheap or even free.

Why Thais want to burn huge piles of stuff every afternoon - even if it costs them nothing - is beyond me.

[dotpoom]

18 hours ago, eyecatcher said:

This is Thai mentality....

I took the wife to one of those money tree collections last week in a very small remote village in san patong.

She had a pile of envelopes that she had hawked around, for the building of yet another temple outbuilding, again in the middle of nowhere.

I refused to go to the collection  ceremony on grounds that it was immoral but the wife and her two friends had collected 10k bt.

 

All told she said there was about a 100 people prancing about and the word was that those people had in just a few days raised 1.2million!!!!

 

Thats disgusting.

And away from the temples they plead poverty.

 

Make no doubt about it, they have more money than most of us.

 

Ps I am in Saraphi also, dont pay anything for bag collection because they refuse to take the truck down a cul de sac.

Nothing new there...many religions (all maybe) have tons of money ..but still the collection "rituals" continue.

[CanuckThai]

It's a tribal thing.  Who doesn't/wouldn't like a (clean) campfire and a pint at the end of the day.  The smell of burning garbage, rotting garbage, putrid nam pla or.....I don't think the stench offends most locals.   Daily burning of X irritates my eyes/nose as well...

[eyecatcher]

5 hours ago, ChrisKC said:

My rubbish is collected by an official and specialised vehicle 3 times per week in Lampang. A man comes round every month to collect B20 for which I get a proper receipt.

Thats the system right in the city. Its 20bt a month and thry collect before 7am every day without fail.....maybe they were slack on NY days, I Phoned to complain, no one answered....so I complained the next day about two issues.

[DJ54]

Im the village once a week no charge. In-laws burn leaves and paper goods once a week. It’s smoky for an hour or so. Neighbors 

pretty much the same. We’re out in the country a lot of dirt roads so undeveloped areas. 

 

It’s not just here my 86 year old Mother lives in the Florida Countryside and she burn leaves and paper when ever the 

50 gallon barrels gets full. It’s my sister and Mom 2 seperate 

house on 10 acres. She’s got 3 or 4 neighbors across the road. 

 

Locally people see see it as a baht saver. Although farmers make

300 a day they don’t work everyday and it would be a rough life

to support a family. 

 

I tried Thai whisky once a 1/4 of shot glass horrible. Asked my friend why don’t the drink beer instead? Less money for the whisky.

[RamenRaven]

Yes but some of the burners drive around in giant shiny new pickups and splurge their cash on plenty of unnecessary things. It's as if they just want to burn because they just want to burn for the heck of it. Not all of them are poor. And not all the poor burn.

[chingmai331]

I often have a small wood fire in my yard, esp during the winter.  Not for heat, but for the primal pleasure of sitting in the dark night and pondering the glories and torments of life while staring into the golden embers.  Sure, my ancestors did the same.

I do not burn trash or garbage of any kind. 

[steven2018]

I often have a small wood fire in my yard, esp during the winter.  Not for heat, but for the primal pleasure of sitting in the dark night and pondering the glories and torments of life while staring into the golden embers.  Sure, my ancestors did the same.
I do not burn trash or garbage of any kind. 

Ah, caveman's television

[Pete1980]

10 hours ago, RamenRaven said:

Yes but some of the burners drive around in giant shiny new pickups and splurge their cash on plenty of unnecessary things. It's as if they just want to burn because they just want to burn for the heck of it. Not all of them are poor. And not all the poor burn.

Shiny new pick ups bought with all the money they saved burning rubbish.

[dcnx]

On 11/25/2018 at 12:35 PM, RamenRaven said:

We know that garbage collection is cheap or even free.

Why Thais want to burn huge piles of stuff every afternoon - even if it costs them nothing - is beyond me.

You can put them in decent homes and give them new trucks and iPhones, but they are still jungle dwellers and farmers at the core of their DNA.

 

It’s going to take many generations before they even have a chance of moving their state of mind into the modern world.

 

We have a huge home next to our condo. Enormous. They have a BMW and a Mercedes. Obviously filthy rich by Thai standards. They also choose to burn garbage instead of putting it on the street like all the other homes in the area. Every few days you can see smoke coming from their yard and smell burning plastic. 

 

I thought maybe it’s the ground keeper is burning it, but there’s no way there is anyone inside the house who isn’t aware of it. 

 

Its in their DNA.

[trainman34014]

1 hour ago, dcnx said:

You can put them in decent homes and give them new trucks and iPhones, but they are still jungle dwellers and farmers at the core of their DNA.

 

It’s going to take many generations before they even have a chance of moving their state of mind into the modern world.

 

We have a huge home next to our condo. Enormous. They have a BMW and a Mercedes. Obviously filthy rich by Thai standards. They also choose to burn garbage instead of putting it on the street like all the other homes in the area. Every few days you can see smoke coming from their yard and smell burning plastic. 

 

I thought maybe it’s the ground keeper is burning it, but there’s no way there is anyone inside the house who isn’t aware of it. 

 

Its in their DNA.

Very true; you can take the Savage out of the Jungle but you can't take the Jungle out of the Savage, and it shows through in many aspects of Thai life !

[soistalker]

Burn their children.

[soistalker]

My neighbor's wife, former bar girl, can't get enough of the smoke.