What Happens to Used Plastic Bottles in Thailand?

[PhilipL]

Hi all,

 

So my fiancé and I save all our used plastic bottles in a big bag for the apartment's cleaning lady who can go to a local shop and sell the bottles for 10 baht per kilo.

 

Why does someone have an interest in buying used plastic in Thailand and what happens with our bottles after they've been sold? 

Edited December 5, 2019 by PhilipL

[CharlieH]

Recycled. Along with many other materials, like metals and cardboard etc.

[PhilipL]

2 minutes ago, CharlieH said:

Recycled. Along with many other materials, like metals and cardboard etc.

Great! I had no idea plastic recycling was actually a thing here. Happy to know it (hopefully) doesn't just end up in some dumpster or even the ocean. 

[jastheace]

if it is saleable, it will be used (recycled). drinks bottles cleanest and most valuable. alu cans more so. mixed plastics less so, good plastic separated, poor plastic burnt or thrown into river/ sea/ land. 

if she gets 100 baht week, it's her bonus.

[CharlieH]

The recycling pick up calls to our home every few weeks and the payment pays the water bill.

Win -win ????

[Liverpudlian]

Thais also try to enchance the beauty of the country road verges too !????

[lovelomsak]

So nobody really knows what hapens to the platic bottles. How do they recycle them?

[bkk6060]

13 minutes ago, lovelomsak said:

So nobody really knows what hapens to the platic bottles. How do they recycle them?

There are numerous recycling plants in the country.

I do not know the process, but normally plastics are recycled into new products.

[Deli]

Most of them go to the road side

[Matzzon]

If people come collect them, they will recycle them and everything is fine. 

I have another problem. Where I live they put up 4 different waste bins to throw garbage in. Each of them have printed both in english and thai what they should be used for.

This is the 4 descriptions: Harmful waste, Food scrap, Recycable and Other waste.

That´s a really good idea. There are some problems, though. People do not sort their garbage in their homes. Here goes plastic, paper, batteries and food scrap as well as everything else down in the same bag. After that they go out and throw it. You would assume that they at least would have the brain to throw it in Other waste, but no, they throw them by free choice in the closest waste bin. In reality some people sometimes move one of this bins closer to their homes so they do not have to walk so far to throw their combined unsorted garbage.

Not enough with that madness. here comes more. They only have one type of truck that collects this environmental friendly sorting of garbage. Here they happy guys just jump out every morning and empty all the different bins into the same car. Off they go with a big smile and a work well done. 

[jastheace]

8 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

So nobody really knows what hapens to the platic bottles. How do they recycle them?

lots of info on t'internet.

sorted into different types of plastic

chipped and cleaned

added to about 60 % virgin plastic prior to manufacturing stage.

I have left out distribution and info about manufacturing stage as varies.

as I said, lots of info on t'internet, including why 100% used plastic is not 'preferred' for reuse.

[EdrigoSalvadore]

3 hours ago, Matzzon said:

This is the 4 descriptions: Harmful waste, Food scrap, Recycable and Other waste.
 

Yes, but nobody know what is harmful waste and recyclable.

[Thian]

They save them for the cold days, every night and morning i smell them getting burned here.

[ukbiker]

 

[Lacessit]

Certain fast food chains buy them to put in their high volume products. I understand cheese producers here are big customers.

[DogNo1]

In Japan, handouts are distributed describing which trash goes into which classification.  If the trash is not properly segregated, it is not taken away.  I pay a cleaning lady to segregate and dispose of the trash for me because I find it a bothersome chore.  Japan is very strict about this.  Disposing of large items is costly.  An old refrigerator could cost $60 - $80 to have taken away.

[DJ54]

We have two big net bags in two areas outside the house. Two to

make it easy for those less motivated to walk a few steps....

 

once a month Papa calls the recycle people... very little money but 

he’s ok with it...

[Burma Bill]

9 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

So nobody really knows what hapens to the platic bottles. How do they recycle them?

From what I have been told, plastic bottles and other plastic items such as trays, cups and packaging are recycled into small plastic pellets which are then used to make the colored plastic seats you see at most festivals.

 

 

 

[Tayaout]

They make rice. 

 

 

[HHTel]

11 hours ago, PhilipL said:

Great! I had no idea plastic recycling was actually a thing here. Happy to know it (hopefully) doesn't just end up in some dumpster or even the ocean. 

Companies buying used plastic and other materials would hardly pay cash for something they are going to dump!  No, they are recycled.  You may have noticed the recycling bins up and down the country separating bottles and plastic etc to be collected and taken to one of a number of recycling plants around Thailand. 

[Mbaki]

10 hours ago, CharlieH said:

The recycling pick up calls to our home every few weeks and the payment pays the water bill.

Win -win ????

Ours does the same except the payment pays for funeral insurance.

[kingofthemountain]

10 hours ago, lovelomsak said:

So nobody really knows what hapens to the platic bottles. How do they recycle them?

one of the solutions

 

http://www.khaosodenglish.com/featured/2019/09/18/this-temple-recycles-plastic-bottles-into-monk-robes/

[tifino]

1 hour ago, Lacessit said:

Certain fast food chains buy them to put in their high volume products. I understand cheese producers here are big customers.

maybe export to China, to make rice out of it?

[Curt1591]

5 hours ago, Matzzon said:

If people come collect them, they will recycle them and everything is fine. 

I have another problem. Where I live they put up 4 different waste bins to throw garbage in. Each of them have printed both in english and thai what they should be used for.

This is the 4 descriptions: Harmful waste, Food scrap, Recycable and Other waste.

That´s a really good idea. There are some problems, though. People do not sort their garbage in their homes. Here goes plastic, paper, batteries and food scrap as well as everything else down in the same bag. After that they go out and throw it. You would assume that they at least would have the brain to throw it in Other waste, but no, they throw them by free choice in the closest waste bin. In reality some people sometimes move one of this bins closer to their homes so they do not have to walk so far to throw their combined unsorted garbage.

Not enough with that madness. here comes more. They only have one type of truck that collects this environmental friendly sorting of garbage. Here they happy guys just jump out every morning and empty all the different bins into the same car. Off they go with a big smile and a work well done. 

When the district trash truck rolls in, usually about 3am, the guys hang around, music blasting, tearing open all the bags and sorting out the good stuff. Then they do a poor job of picking up their mess and moving on. Later that morning, we clean up the street.

[fantom]

I have seen what happens to thousands upon thousands of them.

They end up as floats for oyster farming in areas like the estuaries near Chanthaburi, and am sure other places too.

The oysters live in a gentle snow of degrading plastic, I have no idea where they all end up but assume it may well be the seafloor in the estuaries is a soggy mat of disintegrating plastic bottles.

[Nic2]

Buriram Utd FC are releasing their new kit this week. this is what they are claiming "up to 1 unit will be made from 14 recycled plastic fibers from PET plastic bottles. In addition to wearing shirts, it will also help reduce waste to the world." I will once again wear mine with pride.

[Elmer Fudd]

Is it actually recycled in Thailand or does it get exported to China or somewhere else like most of the West's recycling? That's the real question.

[JDGRUEN]

The information I have about collected plastic bottles and other plastics is this: After the local  collectors retrieve them from the trash (and there are many thousands of of collectors across Thailand - a small army actually). Next there is a chain of brokers / middlemen involved. These middlemen consolidate the plastics into larger and larger bundles / truckloads. Relative to the large amounts of plastics collected there is not a lot of remanufacturing creating new plastic items going on in Thailand. The bulk of the plastics are compressed and bailed - then shipped to other countries to be used in the process of making new plastic items. 

[tifino]

over there in California, a converted-disposal solution came up that does some Good!

 - the Shade Ball

 

[Purdey]

There are about 25 bottle recycling factories in Thailand. The one I know in Nakhon Pathom has automatic washing and slicing machines. The plastic gets melted and chopped into flakes. Most gets made into fibers. IKEA buys about 65% of the products to make into sheets and other fabrics. Some are made into chips that get sent to Australia to be made into bottles. Thailand doesn't allow bottles made from old bottles yet. 

While there are many types of plastic, the type used in bottles is easy to recycle.