A plague of plastic

[Lacessit]

Am I alone in perceiving this?

Item. I buy a plastic-wrapped serving of sai ua ( Northern Thai herbal sausage ) from a shop near my condo. The sales assistant puts it in a plastic bag, then transfers it to ANOTHER plastic bag with handles so I can carry it on my scooter.

Item. The local Rimping supermarket doesn't supply plastic carry bags on Wednesday. The other six days of the week, game on. I even have checkout chicks using two smaller plastic bags in place of one larger bag. Do they get incentives? Buy something expensive, such as a bottle of wine, and they will use TWO bags to add assurance a breakage won't happen.

Item. Buy anything at a 7/11, even if it is a roll-on deodorant I could put in my pocket, it will be put in a plastic bag.

Item. Buy anything at a roadside stall, plastic bags again.

Item. Everyone's bank book comes in a plastic sleeve.

item. Try to find a food item in any supermarket that does NOT have plastic wrapping, or is NOT in a plastic container.

Item. Buy a salad at Tops. You put your salad items into a plastic tray, which is then covered with a plastic lid. Take it to the checkout, it then goes in a plastic bag.

Item. Buy any USB stick, phone, or even electrical leads - they will be encased in plastic.

Item. Buy a 55 baht bucket of soup at Rimping. The bucket is thick plastic with a tamper-proof plastic lid.

Item. Go to Halong Bay, Vietnam - a World Heritage site - and see how much floating plastic there is. It's disgusting.

How many people know what a nurdle is without consulting Google? Isn't the fact marine life is turning up with kilograms of plastic in their stomachs cause for alarm?

Rant over.

[mauGR1]

Why don't you do your part and carry a shopping bag ? Anything helps.

[lopburi3]

But then we compound the problem by allowing this plastic to be dumped into the waters/oceans - that does not have to happen.  Plastic is used around the world - but very few countries pollute the oceans as in Asia.    

[Lacessit]

17 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Why don't you do your part and carry a shopping bag ? Anything helps.

Sometimes I do. Then I get looks as if I'm from outer space.

[mauGR1]

2 minutes ago, Lacessit said:

21 minutes ago, mauGR1 said:

Why don't you do your part and carry a shopping bag ? Anything helps. 

Sometimes I do. Then I get looks as if I'm from outer space. 

Me too, but the planet is more important than some silly looks, actually some Thais compliment me.. Not many tbh.

[Katia]

I got weird looks, too if I said I didn't want a bag.  I dealt with it.  A few vendors thanked me (possibly for saving them the price of a bag, but also possibly for saving the planet from a bag).

 

If I had to faint away every time I got a weird look in Thailand-- asked for my coffee drink hot, went around with an Asian guy, was the only foreigner walking down a street, spoke Thai in Chiang Mai, asked for vegetarian som tam-- I'd have had to stay in my house all the time.

[LongTimeLurker]

19 hours ago, Lacessit said:

How many people know what a nurdle is without consulting Google?

It's a cricket stroke whereby you nudge the ball into an empty area of the field to score a single run, usually used when the lead batsman wants to keep the crease the next over and protect a lower order batsman, especially from fast bowlers and towards the end of the days' play.

[plachon]

So, what's the connection between all that plastic you are consuming in Chiang Mai and Halong Bay, Vietnam? Why not wonder where all the plastic you throw away, cos you seemingly haven't refused any of it, ends up? Which landfill in Chiang Mai does it go to, is it slung in the Mae Ping and thence to the Chao Phraya or is it incinerated and ends up in the air as a nice carcinogenic cocktail for you to breathe in as you go shopping in 7-11 for all your plastic wrapped and bagged items? Thailand's beaches aren't that much better than Vietnam's, depending where you look or decide to swim. 

And those wee plastic nurdles are just about every beach across the world these days, from the Arctic to the Azores. I saw a load in Cornwall the other day, though admittedly the other plastic was a darn sight less than your average SE Asian beach. The point is, as well as heating the planet to potentially deadly temps for us humans to survive across large swathes in the next century or so, we're also polluting the rivers and seas to the point where it is predicted that there will be more weight of plastic in the oceans than fish biomass by 2050. The anthro-obcene is upon us.......

[DingDongLing]

I noticed this plastic problem and am surprised its not dealt with yet.  They think its a luxory  to have a water bottle wrapped in plastic at the top, put in another plastic with a straw and then littered because these people do not know the concept of a trash can or reducing plastic.

 

I wish we could get a movement going to help reduce this.