Soon to be required for all food purchases in Thailand. An innovative low carbon way to replace single use plastic bags. Where do I buy a team of mules?

7 hours ago, Expat Brad said:

Why are you buying and using plastic bags for shopping in the first place?

You can buy a couple of various sized canvas bags. They can be washed when they get dirty as well. 

I use cloth bags and always carry 5 in my pickup. For a bulk shop I carry 3 or 4 more.

33 minutes ago, KhunFred said:

Impressive stupidity. Ban plastic bags but offer no paper bags as a replacement. A clerk at Tops offered me a wrapping for beer cans of a sales brochure. Cannot shop there anymore unless I remember to bring my cloth bag. (which I never do)

I guess that you will be going hungry soon unless you remember your cloth bag.

4 minutes ago, zydeco said:

Soon to be required for all food purchases in Thailand. An innovative low carbon way to replace single use plastic bags. Where do I buy a team of mules?

You just bungee your Honda Wave into the shafts, using a cut up inner tube!

 

Incidentally, I loved the way that, when I pressed the quote button, Thai Visa took me straight to an advert for Mitsubishi Motors - "drive your ambition!"

9 minutes ago, billd766 said:

I use cloth bags and always carry 5 in my pickup. For a bulk shop I carry 3 or 4 more.

I do find that they make the sauce on my "Penang Moo" from the curry lady in the market taste a bit strange!

16 hours ago, JAG said:

I do find that they make the sauce on my "Penang Moo" from the curry lady in the market taste a bit strange!

You could always use those Thai food carriers or even plastic storage boxes.

 

On 1/3/2020 at 9:23 AM, Guderian said:

I bought a roll of plastic bin liners for the waste basket in my kitchen and 2 kg of plastic carriers to take with me when I go shopping. My plastic bag usage won't alter at all, it just means I'll have to pay for them instead of getting them for free. I can understand now why the supermarkets are so keen on this idea.

That's what stupid people are doing. Intelligent people by cotton bags  you can use for many years and doesn't make problems for the environment.

A couple of weeks ago in Robinsons Buriram there was an organised protest against the use of plastic bags. The 100 or so protestors all had plastic banners which were dumped into a shopping trolley at the end of their protest. Say no more.

2 hours ago, puck2 said:

That's what stupid people are doing. Intelligent people by cotton bags  you can use for many years and doesn't make problems for the environment.

Somebody calling another poster "stupid" should at least be able to spell "buy" correctly.

2 hours ago, puck2 said:

That's what stupid people are doing. Intelligent people by cotton bags  you can use for many years and doesn't make problems for the environment.

The ressources used for a cotton bag are equal to the ressources used for about 7000 plastic bags: https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotton-totes-might-be-worse-than-plastic/

How many plastic bags per day do you safe on average? 2?

After only 10 years you will be break even, i hope you use your cloth bag for at least 10 years.

I went to a local mall and bought a large reusable bag for like 6 baht... OK, fine. I've no problem with ditching unfriendly plastic items. They should make it law that only bio-degradable items can be made and either hand them out or charge for them.

 

The only thing that I'm suspicious of is that the main winner out of this is the megacorp monster companies (hence their eagerness to engage the idea) as well as the environment and the customers/public are being cynically used/shafted to increase profit margins whilst it's en vogue etc.

 

Think about it, these monster companies no longer have to produce/buy plastic bags which saves them millions of baht a week and customers are now being charged for them (so extra profit) or forced to bring their own, so why aren't they being forced by the government to lower prices as the price of the plastic bags was factored into the prices on the shelves? It's a good thing that plastic is being ditched but it grates that it'll just increase these awful companies profit margins even further (and they will bang on about their "Green awareness" etc. to get a double win with the PR as they stumble over each other to look good) as no bonus will be given to the customer for doing it as they (customers) are concerned for the environment. It's good that plastic is on the out but these companies just make me puke... they should be called out and be made to lower their prices and no just suck up the extra profit. Won't hold my breath though as most of the sheeple won't even contemplate it and the business monsters know it.

5 hours ago, jackdd said:

The ressources used for a cotton bag are equal to the ressources used for about 7000 plastic bags: https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotton-totes-might-be-worse-than-plastic/

How many plastic bags per day do you safe on average? 2?

After only 10 years you will be break even, i hope you use your cloth bag for at least 10 years.

Unfortunately, nobody is listening to this. They're caught up in their cult. 

I have to say there are a lot of really ridiculous, over-the-top, petty people on here.  "No shop will get my custom if they don't give out free bags", "corporate greed", "I'll leave my items on the counter and walk out".  Thailand had a horrendous obsession with plastic bags (and plastic in general), and this is a big step in the right direction.

 

A couple of nights ago I drove to my local 7-Eleven for some bits and pieces: no bags, everyone had come prepared.  Yesterday I was in Villa Thonglor, no one causing a fuss, everyone happily using their own bags.  Today the same.  Then I had forgotten some things so I went to my local (huge) 24 hour Max Value which is almost exclusively used by Thais and always very busy.  Every single Thai I saw was walking around with their own bags.  They have quietly and quickly adapted and have embraced the change, which is more than can be said for many of the posters on here.  And to think these same posters look down on the Thais.

 

Oh, and because I hadn't planned my Max Value trip I didn't have a bag with me.  They were selling sturdy reusable ones at the check out for the princely sum of 3 baht.  Can't argue with that.

 

So to the moaners saying this is Thailand, it'll last a week then the plastic bags will return because shops will lose customers, the Thais can't adapt.  Guess what, you're wrong.  The Thais have moved on.

Next!

6 hours ago, jackdd said:

The ressources used for a cotton bag are equal to the ressources used for about 7000 plastic bags: https://qz.com/1585027/when-it-comes-to-climate-change-cotton-totes-might-be-worse-than-plastic/

How many plastic bags per day do you safe on average? 2?

After only 10 years you will be break even, i hope you use your cloth bag for at least 10 years.

This ban is not about the resources used to make any sort of bag, it is an effort to reduce the amount of plastic floating around the country. I've seen way too many plastic bags  floating in the ocean, or wrapped around a coral head but I have never seen a single cotton bag. The whales, turtles and deer that died from ingesting plastic did not have any cotton bags in their stomachs either.

58 minutes ago, MikeN said:

This ban is not about the resources used to make any sort of bag, it is an effort to reduce the amount of plastic floating around the country. I've seen way too many plastic bags  floating in the ocean, or wrapped around a coral head but I have never seen a single cotton bag. The whales, turtles and deer that died from ingesting plastic did not have any cotton bags in their stomachs either.

Exactly right!  And not hard to understand (for most people).

On 1/3/2020 at 9:05 AM, josephbloggs said:

Please tell me how you "responsibly" dispose of them? 

China receive ten million tons of plastic waste from developed countries each year. Many low-paid Chinese are working to recycle this plastic. Which often reappear as a new China-produced toy in the West.

5 hours ago, Brigand said:

The only thing that I'm suspicious of is that the main winner out of this is the megacorp monster companies (hence their eagerness to engage the idea) as well as the environment and the customers/public are being cynically used/shafted to increase profit margins whilst it's en vogue etc.

Exactly.... 

8 minutes ago, Felt 35 said:

China receive ten million tons of plastic waste from developed countries each year. Many low-paid Chinese are working to recycle this plastic. Which often reappear as a new China-produced toy in the West.

I am well aware that plastic can be recycled.  I was responding to the guy calling us all knuckleheads because he "responsibly" disposes of his bags.  So is he sending them to China to be made in to toys?  If so I applaud him and he is indeed responsibly disposing of his bags, what a saint.  Unfortunately he hasn't been back to answer the question; he just bashed and ran, so he hasn't allayed my suspicions that he thinks responsibly disposing of them means putting them in the bin. 

 

Quote

So those of us who dispose of our plastic bags responsibly have to forego the convenience of a Supermarket bag because of the knuckleheads who have no thought for how they dispose of their plastic bags 

 

 

 

5 minutes ago, Felt 35 said:

Exactly.... 

Nonsense.

 

So why did they all resist until the government enforced a ban?  

1 hour ago, Felt 35 said:

China receive ten million tons of plastic waste from developed countries each year. Many low-paid Chinese are working to recycle this plastic. Which often reappear as a new China-produced toy in the West.

Get up to date ......

"

China determined in July 2017 to stop import of 24 kinds of solid waste from foreign countries. Solid wastes including plastics, paper products, and textiles, etc. The new policy was implemented on January 1, 2018, and banned the imports of those waste.

An even tighter policy introduced on March 1, 2018, aimed to ban all waste imports into the country. " (Wikipedia)

Which is why a lot of waste was being imported into Thailand, often under shonky paperwork, until that fire and toxic fumes at a processing plant last year drew attention to it.

Edited January 4, 20206 yr by MikeN

Will be interesting to see how this plays out.

On 1/4/2020 at 8:39 PM, MikeN said:

This ban is not about the resources used to make any sort of bag, it is an effort to reduce the amount of plastic floating around the country. I've seen way too many plastic bags  floating in the ocean, or wrapped around a coral head but I have never seen a single cotton bag. The whales, turtles and deer that died from ingesting plastic did not have any cotton bags in their stomachs either.

I just burn my plastic bags, so that's not an issue.

The money made from selling plastic bags should be used for cleaning up the oceans instead of corporate profit...

Does anyone honestly think after watching the herbicide/pesticide ban fiasco think for one minute that this will not disappear like a fart in the wind just as fast ???

7 minutes ago, ireckonso said:

Does anyone honestly think after watching the herbicide/pesticide ban fiasco think for one minute that this will not disappear like a fart in the wind just as fast ???

It won't dispappear, because the retailers make a nice profit from it.

18 hours ago, Elmer Fudd said:

The money made from selling plastic bags should be used for cleaning up the oceans instead of corporate profit...

maybe you should do some research on where the proceeds of selling plastic bags is now going ?