Plastic bottles wash up every day on the west coast beaches during the south west monsoon.  Yesterday I did a random survey of where they are coming from.  

Half the bottles, including many of the furthest-travelled, lost their labels during their voyage so cannot be traced.  Half the remainder with labels are from Thailand and nearby countries; Malaysia. Myanmar and Indonesia (Sumatra).

 

Here’s a selection of bottles from more distant origins to the west.

From left to right in the photo:

• Int’l Beverage Co. water, Maldives (3,000 kilometres to the west)
• Gold water Kerala, India (2,000 kms)
• Horlicks, Haryana, India
• Aqua water, Cochin, India
• Aloe Koma, Colombo, Sri Lanka (2,000 Kms)
• Kist juice, Colombo, Sri Lanka
• Blue water. Ho Chi Minh, Vietnam
• Kodomo Baby Powder Jakarta, Indonesia
• Indo Milk, Jakarta, Indonesia
• Splash water, Singapore
• Shwe Taw Win water, Myanmar
• Soy Nice Selangor, Malaysia
• Summer Water, Perak. Malaysia
• Qing xu water, China

 

I’ve previously seen bottles from Seychelles and South Africa.

Bottles are coming to Phuket from everywhere in the Indian Ocean to the west.

Conversely, plastic bottles depart from Thailand's Andaman coast westward during the NE monsoon November to April! Bottles that don’t get beached somewhere by April can be blown back to Thailand.

And looks like all or most are probably recyclable ones. What a shame our oceans and beaches are turning into dung heaves. 

interesting, in the bay of Thailand, there's not much variety in rubbish found, unless it has  been dropped from ships or are part of bundles imported for recycling