Buying online in Thailand means you are adding to the global plastic waste problem

[LivingNThailand]

16 minutes ago, jacko45k said:

It is to deter sampling and then putting them back!

Well, they did stop putting out sample nuts and locked up the bulk nut containers.   Shut me down. ????

[Jeffr2]

3 hours ago, Bundooman said:

It would seem to me that if you personally buy locally, rather than online, you are also contributing to plastic pollution.

Everything gets a plastic bag, regardless of whether an item is already encased in a plastic container.

I always refuse and typically have my own with me. 

 

I ordered some stuff from Ebay the other day.  I was shocked how much plastic was involved!  It was stunning.

[clivebaxter]

Thais don't chuck it though do they, boxes get flattened and taken to be sold and the wrapping is far too 'valuable' to stuck in the trash. We have cupboards full of old plastic containers which I am assured will come in useful one day ????

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

1 hour ago, hotchilli said:

Hold almost any container/packet/bag up to the light and it's half-full.

There was an article about that not long ago. Some Thai lady took to Facebook about the lack of product in a package. Of course in Amazing Thailand, that meant she got slapped with a defamation suit.

[robblok]

Just now, sungod said:

100 people using cars is a lot worse than 1 guy delivering it all.

 

The only people being unfair here are those writing the article trying to put their opinion across. They have a duty to weigh up all the facts, not just the ones they choose.

 

 

You also have to weigh up all the facts. Because who says people go out for just one product? Your doing the same thing. Pointing out the worst scenario of everyone going out with their car for just one product.

 

Anyway there is merit in reducing the amount of packaging and there is merit in buying online. A more balanced article would have been better.

[Hummin]

The problem is everyone is burning everything that burns. There is no delivery system for recycling, or even the garbage company burn everything outside the city or villages. 

 

The only way is to stop consuming cheap <deleted>!

[CrunchWrapSupreme]

Many are now hopping on the online selling bandwagon. There's really not much else at the moment. The factories have been shutting down. Tourism has been decimated. It takes a huge investment to open a shop, in which the customers barely trickle in.

 

In the evenings in front of a house down the road, we've seen a lady with her many little items all wrapped up in little boxes, ready to go. Packaging really is the only overhead, other than shipping costs and the time involved. Open the Lazada App, then Lazada Live. You'll see an excited lady cajoling you to buy with ringing bells and sound effects, just like in the markets, tho now the market has come to you.

 

We've heard of some of the returned bargirls in the area getting into this. Otherwise they perform various forms of livestreaming entertainment, or simply beg from their grandparents.

[sungod]

12 minutes ago, robblok said:

You also have to weigh up all the facts. Because who says people go out for just one product? Your doing the same thing. Pointing out the worst scenario of everyone going out with their car for just one product.

But I didn't write an article and preach to everyone. If they had been thorough I would not have replied.

[robblok]

1 minute ago, sungod said:

But I didn't write an article and preach to everyone. If they had been thorough I would not have replied.

Ah the fight fire with fire thing. But yes your right and i said as much. They should have pointed out advantages too and they did not. The article is bias. 

[sungod]

1 minute ago, robblok said:

Ah the fight fire with fire thing. But yes your right and i said as much. They should have pointed out advantages too and they did not. The article is bias. 

Pointing out that the article was incomplete and leaving it there would have been better than saying I was being unfair, had I had all the information then I may have commented better, or not at all.

 

But yes, as someone else pointed out, the fact people are talking about it is a good thing.

[robblok]

2 minutes ago, sungod said:

Pointing out that the article was incomplete and leaving it there would have been better than saying I was being unfair, had I had all the information then I may have commented better, or not at all.

 

But yes, as someone else pointed out, the fact people are talking about it is a good thing.

Most of the stuff i buy does not come with too much packing material. I think online shopping is great.

 

But lowering the amount of waste is a good goal. I don't have huge amounts of plastic with my orders mainly carboard and that is it. Not much more as if i would have bought it at a shop.

 

[sandyf]

1 hour ago, jacko45k said:

Pringles... what a swizz!

Exactly what came to my mind, shrunk the product but not the package.

[Hummin]

11 minutes ago, CrunchWrapSupreme said:

Many are now hopping on the online selling bandwagon. There's really not much else at the moment. The factories have been shutting down. Tourism has been decimated. It takes a huge investment to open a shop, in which the customers barely trickle in.

 

In the evenings in front of a house down the road, we've seen a lady with her many little items all wrapped up in little boxes, ready to go. Packaging really is the only overhead, other than shipping costs and the time involved. Open the Lazada App, then Lazada Live. You'll see an excited lady cajoling you to buy with ringing bells and sound effects, just like in the markets, tho now the market has come to you.

 

We've heard of some of the returned bargirls in the area getting into this. Otherwise they perform various forms of livestreaming entertainment, or simply beg from their grandparents.

We wrap and pack Tamarind now, that we before had pick ups coming to to us to bring out around the country. 8kg 100 baht a kg, the pick up truck give half when buy larger quantity

[law ling]

1. There are more important issues than this around in the world today.

 

2. Chief issue is governments failing to have proper rubbish disposal and/or recycling programmes.

 

3. A few years ago we were told everything would be just fine and great if we only stopped getting free "single-use" plastic bags at shops ... so we all did that - and even though I warned (on these very pages!) that multiple use bags were unhygenic - and what happened next: a global pandemic. (Score ... me:one, anti-plastic brigade: zero.)

[sandyf]

5 minutes ago, robblok said:

Most of the stuff i buy does not come with too much packing material. I think online shopping is great.

 

But lowering the amount of waste is a good goal. I don't have huge amounts of plastic with my orders mainly carboard and that is it. Not much more as if i would have bought it at a shop.

 

They are not all bad, I get quite a few packages that have been packed out with screwed up paper.

When I was in the RAF there was no moulded polystyrene then, all the equipment came packed in moulded rubberised horsehair. I often wonder how many horses would be required these days.

[shackleton]

I think with all the Grab motor cycles. I see   coming and going in my 

Compound All day long including evenings 

Delivering food in Polystyrene boxes and plastic bags is a bigger problem 

When you think of all the people doing the same all over Thailand 

Home food  delivery is a big business

 

[Ralf001]

1 hour ago, LivingNThailand said:

There is a certain large grocery store that individually wraps everything little fruit and vegetable  in plastic.  After living here for many years I'm still amazed that a store would singly wrap an apple in cling wrap.  Or a banana?  There's more plastic in one vegetable department than a box you may get with some bubble wrap.  I think they think it's "cleaner" but its a pathetic waste.  In my option, that is.

I purchased two individually wrapped banana's from 7/11 this morning.

Did chuckle at the absurdity of the packaging, surely a small barcode sticker on the banana would suffice.

[Purdey]

It does look like consumers blame everyone except themselves for plastic waste. Plastic doesn't walk itself to the ocean. You may separate plastic waste or take it to a waste aggregator who will send it to the correct recycler. Better usage habits would help a lot. 

Banning plastic just looks good because it is an easy solution that in fact would cause more problems in future. Most people have no idea what everyday items contain plastic. Cars, tyres, airplanes, computers, mobile phones etc. 

While packaging is incredibly wasteful, refusing packaging in shops would help.

Fruit and veg are wrapped to keep them fresh so they do not rot too early and give off greenhouse gases. The key is plastic wrap keeps most food fresh long enough to eat. 

Edited January 26, 2022 by Purdey
Typo

[Crossy]

44 minutes ago, clivebaxter said:

We have cupboards full of old plastic containers which I am assured will come in useful one day ????

 

My lady has a sweet tooth for these:-

 

 

We have literally dozens of these packages containing everything from teabags, breakfast cereal, dog food, fish food to nuts, bolts, screws etc. etc. 

 

Handy screw top, pretty well air-tight, what's not to love?

 

 

[sandyf]

4 minutes ago, shackleton said:

I think with all the Grab motor cycles. I see   coming and going in my 

Compound All day long including evenings 

Delivering food in Polystyrene boxes and plastic bags is a bigger problem 

When you think of all the people doing the same all over Thailand 

Home food  delivery is a big business

 

When I did quarantine in Thailand, all the food came in plastic boxes in a plastic bag, plates, cutlery and microwave were in the room.

When I did quarantine in the UK, the food came on plate, invariably going cold and no microwave.

Not easy to get things right.

[Petethefeet]

I live in the UK and see people buying plastic bottles of water when tap water is safe to drink. I think here that tap water isn't safe to drink. If it was made safe, people wouldn't waste their money buying water and there would be one less plastic waste issue. The same in most 3rd world countries. I was in phuket a few months ago and there was a lot of plastic waste washed up on the beaches including plenty of bottles. 

[KhunLA]

Nothing wrong with plastic, it's what people do with it after it's use.  

 

I burn all mine, if not reusing.  No sense 'recycling' when it's not recycled.  Recycling a farce.  So don't want to give the gov't the opportunity to dump it in the sea.

 

Also notice since the 'situation', use of single use plastic has increased about 10 fold ... ???? 

What a joke ... and nobody seems to care where it ends up, landfill, burned or dumped in the sea.  So I burn it myself, as that's where I want it to go, not in the sea.

 

Wish I lived next to a nice lake, as have gone through enough 6 liter water bottles, I could have made a nice pontoon boat / platform.

Edited January 26, 2022 by KhunLA

[Thomastm]

I've been reusing the bubble wrap in the packages from Shoppee to send to overseas. The amount of plastic is pretty high. But there are ways to reuse it.

[RJRS1301]

15 minutes ago, KhunLA said:

Nothing wrong with plastic, it's what people do with it after it's use.  

 

I burn all mine, if not reusing.  No sense 'recycling' when it's not recycled.  Recycling a farce.  So don't want to give the gov't the opportunity to dump it in the sea.

 

Also notice since the 'situation', use of single use plastic has increased about 10 fold ... ???? 

What a joke ... and nobody seems to care where it ends up, landfill, burned or dumped in the sea.  So I burn it myself, as that's where I want it to go, not in the sea.

Congratulations to a new world 

Combustion of plastic

 

The burning of plastics releases toxic gases like dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (better known as BCPs) into the atmosphere, and poses a threat to vegetation, and human and animal health. ... Burning plastic also releases black carbon (soot), which contributes to climate change and air pollution  

 

https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/can-we-safely-burn-used-plastic-objects-in-a-domestic-fireplace/

 

[KhunLA]

6 minutes ago, RJRS1301 said:

Congratulations to a new world 

Combustion of plastic

 

The burning of plastics releases toxic gases like dioxins, furans, mercury and polychlorinated biphenyls (better known as BCPs) into the atmosphere, and poses a threat to vegetation, and human and animal health. ... Burning plastic also releases black carbon (soot), which contributes to climate change and air pollution  

 

https://engineering.mit.edu/engage/ask-an-engineer/can-we-safely-burn-used-plastic-objects-in-a-domestic-fireplace/

 

Oh well. 

 

Either I burn it, or the gov't does, or dumps it in the sea.  Adding it to landfills, and decomposing into the water table isn't much better, and probably worse of the 3 methods of disposal in the long run.

 

Until they stop producing plastic, it's going to remain a problem.  UP2U how you dispose of it.

 

I really don't think Thailand gives a sh!t, as they actually import plastic trash.  How F'd up is that ?  As if too much isn't produced here already.

 

Money over everything .... disgraceful

Edited January 26, 2022 by KhunLA

[ballpoint]

We received a refrigerator totally packaged in bubble wrap.  I asked my wife what I should do with it and she said "just pop it in the corner".  Took me hours, but I finally got all the bubbles.

 

 

Edited January 26, 2022 by ballpoint

[ballpoint]

My plastic rant concerns fast food restaurants.  These days most places hand out plastic knives, forks, sauce receptacles and spoons when you collect your meal, as getting them yourself from a communal container is deemed unhealthy in these covid ridden times.  I usually say that I don't want any, but sometimes forget, or am too slow, and end up with a couple of sets of plastic cutlery and 3 or 4 sauce dishes on my tray.  I abhor unnecessary waste, so either hand them back straight away or take them home with me for use during parties and other occasions, but most people just throw the unused ones in the bin.  It seems ridiculous to me that a factory would produce a plastic fork, ship it to another country, where it is distributed to a restaurant - perhaps hundreds of km away, only to have it thrown straight into a bin unused.

[thaibook]

2 hours ago, hotchilli said:

World governments could cut the use of packaging by 50% overnight with legislation.

Take a look at most product packaging... they are only half-filled to make the product look larger.

Hold almost any container/packet/bag up to the light and it's half-full.

 

of course the solution (to all problems no doubt) is legislation.  Governments know best and should force people to do what it thinks.  Better to provide incentives and let each person decide what is best for him. 

 

How much breakage has been avoided by th euse of bubble wrap?  Think of all those items that are now not wasted. 

 

We flew Emirates BKK-Nice.  Emirates left our suitcases out in a storm and on arrival they were full of water (no apologies of course).  My wife's clothes were all wrapped in plastic and quite dry.  Wonderful thing plastic.  If only it were also edible we would not need much else.  That is the solution - find a way of making plastic edible.

[Tubulat]

5 hours ago, Bundooman said:

It would seem to me that if you personally buy locally, rather than online, you are also contributing to plastic pollution.

Everything gets a plastic bag, regardless of whether an item is already encased in a plastic container.

And, not to forget, gasoline.

But I have to say, buying online sometimes it is packed in a bag, a bag again, and again in a bag....wrapped in plastic.

Edited January 26, 2022 by Tubulat

[connda]

7 hours ago, webfact said:

Although this may be a convenient way of getting your books, furniture, and even food delivered to your doorstep, the downside is all the packaging that comes with your goods is adding to local and then the global waste problem.

Blame the consumer like usual.  But - it's not the consumer's fault.  Consumers are not responsible for what a manufacturer wraps they products in.  They just buy the products.  The products are wrapped in whatever they are wrapped in.   If you bought from a retailer, the retailer would have unwrapped the product before putting on display.
Blame the source - it's those companies who use plastic for product wrapping.  They are other choices.  Blaming consumers is a fool's game.