Aussie pensioner just wants the Thais to lend a hand to keep their country clean

[RJRS1301]

8 hours ago, BritManToo said:

Only 62, holy poop I would have guesses 80+ from that photo.

That comment speaks volumes about you

[digger70]

19 hours ago, rooster59 said:

She didn't think it was worth trying to get the locals not to litter in the first place.

 

But she wanted them to help clear it up.

 

I would like the Thai people to help me", she told a reporter. 

 

It's a Lost cause .

I tried in our village  All the Thais give you the Thumbs up and Smile , But they Never lift a finger to do it themselves.

[Gecko123]

Riding my mountain bike around the countryside, I started noticing that farm workers were leaving recyclables, especially ice coffee and beer cans, at the edge of the road with the apparent expectation that a scavenger would come along shortly and collect them. The cans weren't being haphazardly thrown into the roadside bush and long grass; they were almost always left within a foot or two of the edge of the road making them easy to retrieve. I've started to believe that in some areas this practice isn't frowned on as littering, but actually seen as lending a helping hand to the less fortunate, perhaps even a form of merit making.

 

[Burma Bill]

21 hours ago, rooster59 said:

She didn't think it was worth trying to get the locals not to litter in the first place.

 

But she wanted them to help clear it up.

 Sadly:-

[sirineou]

7 hours ago, Solinvictus said:

I think many Asians have issues with this sort of implication. They view it as negative (petty IMO) rather than seeing the positive in it alongside helping out.

I would also see it as a negative , because it implies that you are somehow better than me. and perhaps if I did like you , I can be as good as you. 

I mean , if you came into my house and started cleaning , I would say thank you. but if you did it in such a way that suggested that you were doing it because I was not doing a very good job at cleaning my house,  I might tell you to take a walk.

I think you would feel the same.

 

[Sujo]

6 hours ago, Pilotman said:

Yes, I do the same in our immediate area and of course on my own patch of land. I also ensure that we take poo bags with us when we take the dogs for walks, even though the surrounding area may have dog pats everywhere.  I also pick up broken glass if I find it on the beach areas to avoid injury to others, but that's about the extent of my duties in regards to rubbish.   

Why? If locals dont do it why do you. According to you.

 

Why are you preaching on here that you do this?

[Solinvictus]

3 hours ago, sirineou said:

I would also see it as a negative , because it implies that you are somehow better than me. and perhaps if I did like you , I can be as good as you. 

I mean , if you came into my house and started cleaning , I would say thank you. but if you did it in such a way that suggested that you were doing it because I was not doing a very good job at cleaning my house,  I might tell you to take a walk.

I think you would feel the same.

 

555 I think I will do that just for giggles sometime in the future. But it reminds me of say when elder relatives may come and do such a thing. What can ya do? I guess I should tell them to talk a hike too eh? ????

[Odysseus123]

Her activities seem quite reasonable to me and her comments were quite moderate given the context of her remarks.

[Gecko123]

Not all littering is done deliberately. Yes, kids and others toss stuff without thinking, but the wind catches debris which people intended on properly disposing of, people don't always run after it, and it accumulates over time. Picking up other people's garbage has a negative stigma to it which is why it's often done as an organized community activity rather than as an individual. Some smaller municipalities don't have the money to spend on litter clean up like public trash cans and street sweeping, and rely on periodic clean up programs. People who are acting like the West is more civilized are kidding themselves. Take away tax payer paid trash cans and street sweeping and plenty of places in the West would quickly look the same as the worst examples in Thailand.

 

It's unfair to be critiquing this woman's comments. Chances are she made them without having any inkling that they would be turned into a news article or end up on social media. She was just expressing the sentiment that she wished it could become a community effort rather than just an individual one. She wasn't up on a soap box with a bull horn lecturing Thailand about public sanitation and environmental awareness. Give the woman a break, already.

 

[Venom]

16 hours ago, giddyup said:

Explain how it's insulting? Asking people to help clear up their own mess is insulting?

In Thai culture that could be viewed as "loss of face" so must be very careful how you phrase it, however I'm sure someone would be happy to come along and help her burn once it's been collected. ????????????

[Venom]

16 hours ago, giddyup said:

Explain how it's insulting? Asking people to help clear up their own mess is insulting?

In Thai culture that could be viewed as "loss of face" so must be very careful how you phrase it, however I'm sure someone would be happy to come along and help her burn once it's been collected. ????????????

[giddyup]

3 hours ago, Gecko123 said:

Not all littering is done deliberately. Yes, kids and others toss stuff without thinking, but the wind catches debris which people intended on properly disposing of, people don't always run after it, and it accumulates over time. Picking up other people's garbage has a negative stigma to it which is why it's often done as an organized community activity rather than as an individual. Some smaller municipalities don't have the money to spend on litter clean up like public trash cans and street sweeping, and rely on periodic clean up programs. People who are acting like the West is more civilized are kidding themselves. Take away tax payer paid trash cans and street sweeping and plenty of places in the West would quickly look the same as the worst examples in Thailand.

 

It's unfair to be critiquing this woman's comments. Chances are she made them without having any inkling that they would be turned into a news article or end up on social media. She was just expressing the sentiment that she wished it could become a community effort rather than just an individual one. She wasn't up on a soap box with a bull horn lecturing Thailand about public sanitation and environmental awareness. Give the woman a break, already.

 

The wind blowing away the odd plastic bag doesn't explain the mass dumping of household rubbish in empty plots of land around Pattaya and many other locations. Of course if you took away street sweeping and rubbish collection the West would look like Thailand, that's why we do it.

[Gecko123]

1 hour ago, giddyup said:

The wind blowing away the odd plastic bag doesn't explain the mass dumping of household rubbish in empty plots of land around Pattaya and many other locations. Of course if you took away street sweeping and rubbish collection the West would look like Thailand, that's why we do it.

You're now talking about illegal dumping which is a separate issue from casual littering. But the illegal dumping problem is also exacerbated when local authorities are unable or unwilling to provide waste management services such as household garbage pickup and disposal in municipal dumps, which like providing public rubbish collection and street sweeping, often boils down to having the funds available to provide the service.

 

I don't know about Pattaya, but I did research Prachuab Khiri Khan a while ago, and learned that they did not have a local municipal dump and had to pay for their garbage to be hauled into the next province, and this impaired their ability to offer as full garbage disposal services as they might otherwise wish to, and as a result, people turned to illegal dumping as a last resort.

 

My point about littering was that it occurs everywhere, sometimes inadvertently, and if there's an accumulation of litter in an area over time, the reason may have more to do with the local community's inability to finance waste disposal and cleanup than because Thais are inherently bigger litterbugs than people in the West, which is what a number of posters on this thread seemed to be suggesting.

 

[cardinalblue]

Role model or fool? As a foreigner in a country that resents them, I vote for the ladder....

 

it has no effect on Thai behavior...actually might reinforce normal behavior of garbage dumping...oh look someone else cleans up after me...just don’t care...no shame in having an entire country as one big unmanaged landfill....

 

no different than Thai driving attitude