Five brands responsible for most of Thailand’s plastic pollution: Greenpeace

By The Nation

 

 

Greenpeace Thailand also revealed the results of its 2020 plastic waste audit on Thursday.

 

It showed the brands that produce the most plastic waste are Charoen Pokphand Group (CP), Dutch Mill, Osotspa Group, TCP, and Lactasoy Group. The audit was based on samples collected in Chiang Mai (Doi Suthep) and Chonburi (Von Napa Beach) in October.

 

More than 70 volunteers in Thailand collected 13,001 pieces of plastic, the most common being food packaging (8,489), followed by household products (3,273).

 

The plastic item most commonly found was bags (2,647), followed by snack bags (2,099), plastic bottles (1,137), drinking straws (1,063), plastic labels (895),bottle caps (764), yoghurt cups (692), plastic scrap (691), beverage cartons (670) and bottle lock rings (588).

 

 

The brand audit is part of the “Break Free From Plastic” campaign launched in 55 countries around the world. Globally, the three most common brands of plastic waste are Coca-Cola, PepsiCo and Nestlé.

 

Greenpeace says manufacturers must reduce the plastic packaging they use, since recycling is not doing enough to reduce the mountain of daily plastic waste.

 

One way to make manufacturers responsible for the waste is the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) law.

 

The EPR law has been adopted on a voluntary basis across the world as a guideline for manufacturers to take environmental impacts into consideration, from design, and distribution, to return, collection, reuse, and treatment of their products.

 

However, in Thailand the government is not taking EPR law seriously, said Penchom Saetang, executive director of the Ecological Alert and Recovery – Thailand (Earth) NGO. Pushing this law will encourage manufacturers to change packaging practices and reduce the use of plastic, he said.

 

Meanwhile waste from Thailand’s food delivery services has increased 15 per cent from 5,500 tonnes to 6,300 tonnes per day in the “new normal” era, with up to a 12 times increase in online orders, according to Greenpeace Thailand.

 

Only about 25 per cent of the waste is recycled, while the rest adds to the country’s growing plastic pollution problem, says the NGO. It also warns that using plastic once and then throwing it away is becoming a new-normal way of life for Thai people.

 

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30399105

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand 2020-12-04

 

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Wow CP who would have ever guessed !

4 minutes ago, tracker1 said:

Wow CP who would have ever guessed !

And do they really care ?

Probably not.

15 minutes ago, webfact said:

The plastic item most commonly found was bags (2,647), followed by snack bags (2,099), plastic bottles (1,137), drinking straws (1,063), plastic labels (895),bottle caps (764), yoghurt cups (692), plastic scrap (691), beverage cartons (670) and bottle lock rings (588)

Do polystyrene food trays not count then?

I smell a lawsuit or two (or five) on the way????

Im surprised Durex is not listed there

19 minutes ago, ChipButty said:

Im surprised Durex is not listed there

Used to put them on the end of the barrel on the old SLR. Kept out rain, dust, sand etc. Often wondered what people thought if they found one with the end blasted off and scorch marks on it.

????????

3 hours ago, ChipButty said:

Im surprised Durex is not listed there

Rubber?

 

Thai media needs to blitz the citizens. Brain washing works, embarrass the <deleted> out of them. If they are serious about getting tourists back to pre covid they need to cleanup the act.

13 hours ago, Cake Monster said:

And do they really care ?

Probably not.

 

Whilst these companies could probably do better to redevelop their packaging, the only people to REALLY blame are Thais themselves. They are notoriously bad disposing of litter.

 

Wow listing CP and Red Bull. Expect a lawsuit soon and Government to jump up about great they are. These are good people companies.

15 hours ago, overherebc said:

Used to put them on the end of the barrel on the old SLR. Kept out rain, dust, sand etc. Often wondered what people thought if they found one with the end blasted off and scorch marks on it.

????????

You must have had very small lenses if you used them in Thailand

2 hours ago, smutcakes said:

Wow listing CP and Red Bull. Expect a lawsuit soon and Government to jump up about great they are. These are good people companies.

The money they "donate" makes them very worthy companies.....

Recently in Chonburi I have noticed more and more Thais throwing plastic bottles and other garbage out of the window of their vehicles. 

Didn't really notice it at all before. 

 

 

You would be surprised how much plastic one collects from their grocery shopping.

 

In our household we have 3 bins, the first bin usually fills with nothing more than used paper or tissue paper and is buried in the wife's land up the road as landfill, all food scraps go into the garden.

 

The second bin is the recycling bin and that is dropped off to the wife's dad up the road who on sells it and gets to keep the money.

 

The 3rd bin is everything plastic which I then put into smaller plastic bags tie them up and pierce them with a small hole so as to allow the air to escape from within the bags as I stand on them to compress them into much smaller sizes then put them into another bag, up to 4 in one bag and then when out drop them into the big blue bins when in town, e.g. one or two bags that look like normal shopping size bags.

 

I have no idea what else to do with them, but I sure as hell am not going to burn them, the idiots up the road have dug a big whole across the road in front of the river (Temples land) and I believe 5-6 households all throw their plastic and other waste into it and light it up once a week, and those nappies take forever to extinguish.

 

We have no garbage disposal service in our village, apparently the 160 baht a month is too expensive for them to pay, especially when a lighter are much cheaper and the mayor has no balls, only interested in selling illegal lottery tickets etc etc.

 

You sometimes wonder what makes these people tick, from top to bottom, but as an educate foreigner I will keep doing my bit which I know is pointless, but if I stopped the guilt would kill me.

Edited December 5, 20205 yr by 4MyEgo

The gal in the first pic.....that trash looks vietnamese, as Ive yet to see a thai gal pick up trash in LOS in a decade

 

2nd giveway to she not thai..shes smiling while doing the cleanup   Next pic..catty cat..japan based company

3 hours ago, Chelseafan said:

 

Whilst these companies could probably do better to redevelop their packaging, the only people to REALLY blame are Thais themselves. They are notoriously bad disposing of litter.

 

They throw it over the wall hoping it will go away itself 

28 minutes ago, Mr Meeseeks said:

Recently in Chonburi I have noticed more and more Thais throwing plastic bottles and other garbage out of the window of their vehicles. 

Didn't really notice it at all before. 

 

It seems noise, litter, and 2.5 pm air pollution is what makes life worth living in the LOS. ????

23 minutes ago, 4MyEgo said:

We have no garbage disposal service in our village, apparently the 160 baht a month is too expensive for them to pay, especially when a lighter are much cheaper and the mayor has no balls, only interested in selling illegal lottery tickets etc etc.

 

You sometimes wonder what makes these people tick, from top to bottom, but as an educate foreigner I will keep doing my bit which I know is pointless, but if I stopped the guilt would kill me.

Pretty good where I live we about 480 Baht per year they come around 2 or 3 times a week to empty the bins, in the moo bann is mostly farang 2 houses facing are Thai's they have no bins they would rather sneak around at night putting it in my bin which I dont mind if they would put it in a black plastic bag the bin men wont take it away so right now I've got some stinking rotten fish at the bottom of the bin.

We congratulate Thailand on the unbelievable (used deliberately) Covid figures. Despite their religion they fear death (except on the roads!).  Maybe they should publish figures showing the huge numbers of annual respiratory deaths caused by burning waste/crops.

A few weeks ago one of the neighbours bought a new wheelie bin someone has nicked it, pathetic!

Not to let CP & other major brands off the hook, but I'd say a bit of a flawed study. The local food stall doesn't have it's brand name plastered all over the double and triple bagged food you take away, for instance.

1 hour ago, ChrisY1 said:

You must have had very small lenses if you used them in Thailand

Lenses????? Confused I am Obe.

14 hours ago, Antiparovian said:

Rubber?

 

Yes, but they can also be made from polyisoprene or polyurethane, the latter is a plastic. 

Sadly Thai culture is, not my land so I do not care operates more in the villages than towns. Minimal  litter bins and those that are around are continually full   Once when complaining about local market being littered with so much rubbish I was told, not your land so why worry . Typical Thai attitude which does nothing to address the situation at all. 

In relation to this post, and researching each company named, I came upon this information in Lactasoy Group's official website under "About Us" (quote:-)

 

During the World War II, we distributed our products to the Japanese military base camps and in Yaowarat area (currently known as China Town).

Yesterday near Pranburi National Park.....I am speechless????

If all plastic bottles had a deposit on them, you would never see one just thrown away & if was the young kids would be on it

I actually think this is an inspired idea that Greenpeace has not followed through on.   At least flag the top 5 brands (not companies) and keep the social media and PR focused on these brands relentlessly.  I can assure you that companies will care once their brands start getting flagged as bad actors.  Of course the Thai response will be to suppress the truth in court.  Let the defemation cases roll ... free publicity

On 12/4/2020 at 9:11 AM, overherebc said:

Used to put them on the end of the barrel on the old SLR. Kept out rain, dust, sand etc. Often wondered what people thought if they found one with the end blasted off and scorch marks on it.

????????

When the corporal handed me one before I went on guard duty, I thought we had a special bond