Plastic Bags

[PattayaParent]

Double post deleted

Edited January 11, 2008 by PattayaParent

[jstumbo]

Hydro power staions do not result in a loss of water downstream.After passing through the turbines the water is re-routed back downstream...or at least it should be!

But the problem is the river is dammed and the water flow restricted and controlled so the amount of flow downstream is not as great as it would be naturally.

I would imagine at times the flow is less, but it seems like the flow rate would be more consistent throughout the year and help to prevent seasonal flooding.

[JacknDanny]

They did this in America back in the 60s/70s and it was very successful. The government used a Native American (Indian) man as the showpiece. He stood in full head dress next to a garbage dump with a tear in his eye. I believe the tag line was: "Keep America Clean"

The ironic thing is that Indian reservations are probably the trashiest place in America...

Thailand can be cleaned up -- just have to train the boys (aka men) to clean up after themselves. Until their mothers (aka wives) do this...the boys will be slobs.

I recall England in the 1905's when I was growing up,

I always thought you were a bit of an old fart Mobi, but 102? Holy Sh!t!!

Back on discussion, I am in my 40s and I remember going shopping with my mother to places like the Coop and Liptons back in the UK and you had to PAY for plastic bags.

Most people went shopping with their own bags

[Thaddeus]

Bring back hollowed out coconut shells and banana leaves....... they worked quite well for a healthy period of time.

[Mobi]

I recall England in the 1905's when I was growing up,

I always thought you were a bit of an old fart Mobi, but 102? Holy Sh!t!!

Back on discussion, I am in my 40s and I remember going shopping with my mother to places like the Coop and Liptons back in the UK and you had to PAY for plastic bags.

Most people went shopping with their own bags

That's what comes of clean living - and there's nothing wrong with my bowel movements either

You are quite right about the bags. I remember going to New York in the mid sixties, and being surprised by everyone going to the supermarkets and having the shopping put in bags. In those days they were brown paper bags, which I guess were a bit better than the plastic bags that replaced them.

But back in England we were still bringing our own shopping bags to the shops. When did all that change, I wonder?

When did the world go mad?

[yorkman]

Hydro power staions do not result in a loss of water downstream.After passing through the turbines the water is re-routed back downstream...or at least it should be!

As if, the Chinese are then taking it from the reservoir and using it using it for irrigation.

What they need to generate the hydroelectric power is allowed to go downstream, and dammed again, same scenario repeated.

So.. ecological disasters in , as I said, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. The Mekong is not mighty in the dry season, its a trickle, take a look.......

[yorkman]

They use the excuse of, as a developing country, why can't we catch up etc. And will soon overtake the USA as the most polluting country in the world. Huge development in coal fired power stations for one.

If coal fired power stations use precipitators and flue gas desulferisation units they actually have cleaner emmissions than oil fired power stations and the World Bank and Asian Development Fund and where the money comes from for Third World countries to build power station now insist on having FGD units attached to the plant. There are also funds being put into place to add FGDs to existing plants to reduce emmissions.

Combined cycle expansions to plants are a good way to go though as it increases the amount of electricity into the net but doesn't increase the levels of emmissions.

True enough, but the cleanest emissions wise are, dare I say it, Nuclear. A whole other debate...

The problem is that the Chinese (and I am not picking on them, they are just more Thai related) are not building clean(er) coal fired power stations. They are building whatever suits their short term needs.

It's a tough one isnt it? They are trying to do in 20 years what has taken other countries 100 years. I don't blame them for that, but the end effect is terrible.

Just locally, the Mekong has rising heavy metal pollution, upstream from the Chinese; the fishing has nearly gone, the twice yearly rice crop is a thing of the past for those next to the Mekong (no water), and well downstream the Mekong delta in Vietnam, which used to be a haven for mangrove wildlife, is near dead......

This plastic bag thing, while being very worthy in itself, is, I would suggest, the Chinese waving their weak green credentials. A really easy quick win

[Bananaman]

I've been bringing my own bags to the shops and markets since the day I arrived here over 5 years ago and it still elicits the same immature responses in people....they actually laugh like "oh look at the ting-tong farang with his hemp shopping bag". On occasions I've had vendors insist on putting food items in plastic before it goes into the cotton bag because "it might leak". When I've politely insisted otherwise, they've gotten all offended.

Last month I bought a new blender and had to get less than 50 feet from the till to the car, I insisted no bag was necessary but the cashier insisted for security reasons that I had to have one. I told her I'd keep my receipt in my hand in case any security guards collared me on the way out but this just fell on deaf ears and so I ended up with a volume of plastic large enough to make a decent sized sleeping bag for an elephant.....

When I turn up at the soy milk stall with my Thermos flask...now that's an eyebrow raiser if there ever was one!

[meemiathai]

I am always amazed about the amount of plastic bags I end up with after shopping at Lotus or any other mall.

They make great garbage bags but the amount I recieve outperforms the amount I use.

It takes 10.000 barrels of oil to make 100 Million plastic bags, go figure.

Can this be done in Thailand, see Youtube clip.

Why don't you bring your own bag?

[billd766]

When I worked in Papua New Guinea last year there was the same problem with the shopping bags.

However in the fresh markets for about 25 baht you could but half a 50kg sugar bag that had a shoulder strap on it and that made a very good strong re-usable shopping bag. As a white man (aka farang) I used to get a lot of odd looks from the locals for using that.

My wife tells me that you can get similar things over in Thailand up country but I haven't seen any around here.

One of the reasons that plastic shopping bags came along was because the shops could advertise on them.

Going back to the late 50's in UK when I were a lad I used to deliver groceries to customers houses using the bicycle with the smaller front wheel and big basket on the front and we used to wrap things in newspaper and brown paper and deliver the shopping in cardboard boxes.

[AlexLah]

I am always amazed about the amount of plastic bags I end up with after shopping at Lotus or any other mall.

They make great garbage bags but the amount I recieve outperforms the amount I use.

It takes 10.000 barrels of oil to make 100 Million plastic bags, go figure.

Can this be done in Thailand, see Youtube clip.

Why don't you bring your own bag?

Because I do not like people laughing at me................

[Pepe']

This is one of my pet rants, but I'll try to be brief.

I live in a village, some 15kms from Pattaya, about 1/2 km from the local market in a small soi. The entire road and adjacent fields from the market to my house is 'knee deep' in plastic bags and other refuse, discarded by locals as they walk back to their homes from the market, past my front gate.

If it wasn't for the free lance rubbish recyclers that clear up periodically, we would surely be overwhelmed.

I have said this before , but it's needs regular restating.

Educating the population to keep their country tidy is a cheap win win for any government. Get a campaign going, get the teachers to ram it down the kids throats at an early age, and put a few public service ads on TV and radio, and within a few years you would see a big change.

Educate the kids to to love their country and keep it clean, and even to chastise their elders when they see them wantonly littering their beloved land.

Most western countries did this fifty years ago, and it really wouldn't cost much to do it here.

And ban 7-11 from issuing plastic bags for every single item that is purchased.

For more worthwhile than the farcical laws and restrictions on the sale and consumption of booze.

-------------------------

How much education, really, does it take to get people to not live like pigs in a pig sty.

When we were kids and threw any trash on the ground we got a good smack and a reprimand. It only took a few times to "get it" and begin to learn not to live like an animal.

Not very complicated and no additional government expenditure for education.

In Thailand if anyone needs education it,s probably the parents first.

Then smack the kids. Never on the head though, only on the butt. It only hurts the ego...

[yorkman]

In Thailand if anyone needs education it,s probably the parents first.

There's the truth.

I do wonder though, if more modernised countries did not have the infrastructure to clear up the mess, exactly what they would look like.

Its not just a Thai thing though is it?, more like a SE Asian thing (with the exception of Singapore, draconian legislation and education)

[Pepe']

In Thailand if anyone needs education it,s probably the parents first.

There's the truth.

I do wonder though, if more modernised countries did not have the infrastructure to clear up the mess, exactly what they would look like.

Its not just a Thai thing though is it?, more like a SE Asian thing (with the exception of Singapore, draconian legislation and education)

--------------------------

I live in a middle class neighborhood in San Diego. There is rarely a piece of trash/paper in the street.

If there is one of us just picks it up. It's very clean here. But the women aren't as good lookin'...

[happy7]

I am always amazed about the amount of plastic bags I end up with after shopping at Lotus or any other mall.

They make great garbage bags but the amount I recieve outperforms the amount I use.

It takes 10.000 barrels of oil to make 100 Million plastic bags, go figure.

Can this be done in Thailand, see Youtube clip.

Plastic bags have been linked to heath concerns as well. Chemicals in plastic bags (and containers) can leach into your food - particularly if the food/beverage is hot and oily. Health concerns include development problems, memory problems, various types of cancers, etc. See the Mindfully.org website below. In Thailand, it seems almost all cooked food you buy at the market and supermarket are sold in plastic bags, or wrapped in plastic wraps. I think I will take Banaman's example and bring a thermos to get my soy milk!

If anyone is interested, here are some websites for more information:

http://www.mindfully.org/Plastic/Plasticiz...et-PG5nov03.htm

A site saying that there say that using plastic is safe:

http://www.americanchemistry.com/s_plastic...96&DID=4250

Not exactly about plastic bags, but it's interesting that Canada's Mountain Equipment company pulled water bottle off shelves due to possible health risks.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/sto...y/National/home

[Kerryd]

I've noticed a commercial on TV (in Pattaya) that has been running quite a bit. Starts off with a couple of male and female warriors in a battle who are then transported to modern day Thailand. Every where they look they see piles of trash (and a few soi dogs rummaging through the garbage). They all get the same mournful expressions and teary eyes at the sight of all that trash.

Unless I'm getting a large amount of junk from Family Mart/7-11, I usually refuse the bags as well. Seems ridiculous to get a bag to hold a pack of cigarettes and a stick of Mentos candies.

The bags I do accumulate all get stuffed into the largest bag. Some are reused for trash bags, the rest I give to the landlady, along with what ever plastic/glass bottles and cardboard I've saved up. She in turn sells that to the local recycling crew that comes around once or twice a week. It's a few extra baht for her, and a little less trash in the landfills (though I notice the garbage truck gang usually rummage through the bags of trash as they dump them in the truck, and haul out what ever recyclables they find as well).

One annoyance is the crap bags they use in the first place. When ever I buy a quantity of heavy items, it's either got to be double-bagged, or risk the bag tearing open before I get to the exit. I think the cloth bag idea sounds pretty good. Sturdier and larger capacity (than your average plastic shopping bag), and re-usable for considerably longer.

Imagine how many plastic bags you'd normally accumulate in a year instead of using 1-2 cloth bags.

Styrofoam containers are another nuisance that we would be better off without. I don't think styrofoam is recyclable at all, and creates some rather noxious gases when it's burned.

Edited January 13, 2008 by Kerryd

[Pepe']

I've noticed a commercial on TV (in Pattaya) that has been running quite a bit. Starts off with a couple of male and female warriors in a battle who are then transported to modern day Thailand. Every where they look they see piles of trash (and a few soi dogs rummaging through the garbage). They all get the same mournful expressions and teary eyes at the sight of all that trash.

Unless I'm getting a large amount of junk from Family Mart/7-11, I usually refuse the bags as well. Seems ridiculous to get a bag to hold a pack of cigarettes and a stick of Mentos candies.

The bags I do accumulate all get stuffed into the largest bag. Some are reused for trash bags, the rest I give to the landlady, along with what ever plastic/glass bottles and cardboard I've saved up. She in turn sells that to the local recycling crew that comes around once or twice a week. It's a few extra baht for her, and a little less trash in the landfills (though I notice the garbage truck gang usually rummage through the bags of trash as they dump them in the truck, and haul out what ever recyclables they find as well).

One annoyance is the crap bags they use in the first place. When ever I buy a quantity of heavy items, it's either got to be double-bagged, or risk the bag tearing open before I get to the exit. I think the cloth bag idea sounds pretty good. Sturdier and larger capacity (than your average plastic shopping bag), and re-usable for considerably longer.

Imagine how many plastic bags you'd normally accumulate in a year instead of using 1-2 cloth bags.

Styrofoam containers are another nuisance that we would be better off without. I don't think styrofoam is recyclable at all, and creates some rather noxious gases when it's burned.

-----------------------

Sounds like a nice effort, never go wrong by trying to respect mother nature.

I use most plastic bags as rash bags.

The rest get recycled in a bin at the large supermarkets.

Can't remember when I've seen a plastic bag in the street here in San Diego.

However the woman in Thailand are definitely hotter, for the most part...

[harleyclarkey]

One of the best things we did here in Ireland was the impose a tax on every plastic bag at point of sale....this is currently 20 cents a bag. The usgae of plastic bags dropped 95%!!! There used to be plastic bags caught in every bush and tree in the country....no more.

Everybody now brings along their own canvas/heavy duty bags for shopping and these are available for abiour 1 euro. Simple solution for a very messy problem.

I always have to ask the shop girls to use a third of the bags they want to give me. It's as if they feel they are being mean if they pack more than 3-4 items in a bag.!!

[Crash999]

Plastic bags have been linked to heath concerns as well. Chemicals in plastic bags (and containers) can leach into your food - particularly if the food/beverage is hot and oily. Health concerns include development problems, memory problems, various types of cancers, etc. See the Mindfully.org website below. In Thailand, it seems almost all cooked food you buy at the market and supermarket are sold in plastic bags, or wrapped in plastic wraps. I think I will take Banaman's example and bring a thermos to get my soy milk!

The plastic used for the bags is (in most cases) HDPE which isn't the same as PVC that's mentioned in the article. The biggest use of PVC these days is for plastic wrap, though most of the brands have switched over to PE which is less clingy. Some of the no-name brands are still PVC and I'd recommend not using it to cover containers or food when heating.

[Crash999]

Most plastic shopping bags are made from HPDE (the crinkly grocery type), LDPE (softer bags such as those used by Target) or a blend. Both types can be recycled but the issue is that no one does it, so they wind up taking up space in landfills. New on the market are HDPE bags blended with bio material that degrades much faster. Here in HK the largest grocery store has switched over to using them.

The degradable bags are about 5-10% more expensive than the plastic ones and are slightly weaker and have less elasticity. On the surface the cost increase doesn't sound like much but if you consider that a retailer like Tesco Lotus spends about US$5m/yr on bags the demand (or law) really needs to be there before a major retailer will make the switch.

Thailand is one of the world's major exporters of plastic bags. If the government were to force retailers to switch to degradable bags it'd create a nice market need and get the Thai producers up to speed with this type of product. I know that US retailers are looking at this now and given current trends it's only a matter of time before they start to make the switch to alternatives.

[greenmember]

Styrofoam containers are another nuisance that we would be better off without. I don't think styrofoam is recyclable at all, and creates some rather noxious gases when it's burned.

Yesterday I bought steamed pla tho (a kind of fish) and shocked that they were in styrofoam white box covered by see through wrapper. No more bamboo round box (same as used in dim sum) for pla tho.

Near my house people just sweep garbage including plastic bags, milk boxes into the drainage hole on the street and burn. When I see my sister in law's helpers almost burn plastic bags together with garbage, I tell them not to do that and explain that "When you burn these bags and you smell that, it's dangerous". I took up these bags and put into garbage box.

At home my Thai husband likes to burn dry leaves and whatever he collects in the garden to scare mosquito. That late afternoon he took a nylon torn T shirt someone threw away to burn with garbage. I took it up to throw into garbage bin but he took back and burnt. I waited until he walked away then I took it out.

Right now when I repeated to him for the 50^th time that using plastic bag to keep hot foods and soy milk will cause cancer. He said "tsang hua mun" (ignore his head aka I don't give a shxt). I recently don't buy soy milk in the morning as I'm scared of hot thing in plastic bags.

In markets and 7-11, they want us to use bags so they can control that you already paid. In some shops after giving us the goods in bags, they seal up the bag so we don't put unpaid things in. In Central, Emporium, Siam Paragon….. you always have nice paper bags and sometimes plastic bags.

Fish sellers in the market always give me 2 bags. I sometimes bring my own bag of the previous shopping and, like you have experienced, sellers just laugh at me being weird.

Last week we stopped at Petronas gas station and Suria mini mart. When I bought a bottle of drinking yoghurt, the clerk didn't give me a bag. I was a bit surprised at first but I don't need it anyway. My husband after using the face wipe just scroll the window down and throw out the plastic cover. I said "Let me keep it. When we reach home, I'll clear garbage in the car". He said "Let me throw them out. Don't act like you care for the environment. When coming home I have no mood to clear garbage in car. Car is full of garbage inside".

When I'm in the car with him, I take bags from his hand before he scroll down the window. I put all garbage in a bag and throw into the garbage bin when I arrive home. I will tell him until he changes his attitude. However I don't know what these guys collecting garbage will do with plastic bags.

[Boo]

7-11 are the worst offenders IMO, too many times I have removed my one or two items from the plastic bag & placed it back on the counter to be met with confused looks. I ususally just put the things (chewing gum or a can of drink only) in my handbacg & ask them why I need a plastic bag. Reply - nervous smile or blank shrug. Llike alot of situations they don't know why but give a bag to every customer cause thats what they have been trained to do. 7-11 should train staff to ask if a customer wants a bag rather than train them to give one regardless of how small an item has been purchased. I just carry on givig the bags back, don't know how effective my way is but has probably saved several hundred bags form being wasted over the years.

[meemiathai]

I am always amazed about the amount of plastic bags I end up with after shopping at Lotus or any other mall.

They make great garbage bags but the amount I recieve outperforms the amount I use.

It takes 10.000 barrels of oil to make 100 Million plastic bags, go figure.

Can this be done in Thailand, see Youtube clip.

Why don't you bring your own bag?

Because I do not like people laughing at me................

Why? Do you look very funny with your own bag?

No one laughs at me here in HK. I carry my own bag when I know I am going to supermarkets.

[AlexLah]

Maybe because you look like Rambo?

[tijnebijn]

Maybe nice thoughts but I think some overly green people

are a little overreacting here , almost seems its dominating

every days activities .

Sometimes its just better to relax and not panick what might happen ......

[tijnebijn]

Maybe because you look like Rambo?

I saw Rambo last year with a very big funny bag at Chiang mai airport

last year , started to laugh , after seeing he was much bigger then I thought I

just walked away quietly .

It works ! And its a true story .

[Chang_paarp]

A couple of positive things that I have noticed in the last week on this front for me.

At one of the 7's in Sai Thai Mai, I asked for no bag and the girls did not need to be reminded. (2 different purchases)

At Villa Pattaya, I bought some wine, they wrapped the bottles in an old copy of their magazine, and then put them into a cloth bag for me. I was a little worried about the weight in the bag, but it made it home.

Another place is offering "stylish" re-usable shopping bags as a bonus present for their shoppers. (The bags must be stylish the models showing them off in the pictures all had pale skin, fashionable hair cuts and designer eyeware.)

OK little steps, but some people are taking notice.

[konjianghai]

OK, lets hope they tackle next the coal fired power stations, the damming of the Mekong so all the "downriver" countries suffer etc etc.

Well its a start eh??

You mean you'd rather they didn't make a start?

No, thats a start. But plastic bags is the tip of the iceburg.

I do mean I would rather they stopped the vastly more important things.

They use the excuse of, as a developing country, why can't we catch up etc. And will soon overtake the USA as the most polluting country in the world. Huge development in coal fired power stations for one.

And, Thai related, and Laos, and Cambodia, and Vietnam, stop damming and draining off the Mekong for hydroelectric power and irrigation.

Have you recently looked at the Mekong in Nongkai in the dry season? I could nearly walk across to Laos. No fishing, no water to cultivate rice...

I certainly welcome that start, I just wish it was not superficial.

First of all not only Nongkai went throught this situation. Each provinces along Mekong River suffer the same! My province Chiang Rai suffer as much too!

And not only Thailand or Laos is making the dams! Look at the bigger picture! CHINA..............they make those evil dams biggern then Thai or Laos!

I just want to bomb those dam_n dams! I'm very angry cause i hate people distroy the enviroment just for wealth.

For the plastic bags...sure you can contact the goverment about it. Making a campaign would help alot.

[Mobi]

Here's an idea.

The owner of 7/11 in Thailand is a multi billionaire. His stores pervade every nook and cranny of this land and are now entrenched as part of the modern Thai culture.

How about 7 starting a "reduce plastic bags / love a cleaner Thailand' campaign. There's many ways they could dso this, and I'm sure the creative geniuses at the ad agencies could come up with many bright ideas. But something along the lines of a discount card or free gift ( sweets for the kids) for every customer who brings their own bag. Or whatever. Just get the public at it - kids especially - and have a nationwide publicity campaign to reduce the amount of plastic, and clean up Thailand. The country would benefit and so would 7/11 as the main sponsor of the scheme, and the savings they would make on plastic bag production. They could even sell reusable bags as supermarkets do in other countries.

7/11 would overnight be changed from the villains to the heroes.

A win win situation. But it will never happen.

But who knows, maybe someone should write and suggest it?

[pattyboy]

Here's an idea.

The owner of 7/11 in Thailand is a multi billionaire. His stores pervade every nook and cranny of this land and are now entrenched as part of the modern Thai culture.

How about 7 starting a "reduce plastic bags / love a cleaner Thailand' campaign. There's many ways they could dso this, and I'm sure the creative geniuses at the ad agencies could come up with many bright ideas. But something along the lines of a discount card or free gift ( sweets for the kids) for every customer who brings their own bag. Or whatever. Just get the public at it - kids especially - and have a nationwide publicity campaign to reduce the amount of plastic, and clean up Thailand. The country would benefit and so would 7/11 as the main sponsor of the scheme, and the savings they would make on plastic bag production. They could even sell reusable bags as supermarkets do in other countries.

7/11 would overnight be changed from the villains to the heroes.

A win win situation. But it will never happen.

But who knows, maybe someone should write and suggest it?

Your head and heart are certainly in the right place, and 7-11 seems to be one of the worst culprits when it comes to wasting plastic bags. I can recall one situation where I bought couple of items that were put in a bag. As I was about to leave the cashier, I remembered that I needed some cigarettes. The cashier grabbed my ONE PACK of cigarettes and was about to put it in a smaller bag when I stopped her and opened up the bag she had just given me 30 seconds earlier, inviting her to drop them in there. She looked confused but then smiled and dropped the cigarettes in when I said, "mi toom leow, Khop".

I think your idea is more likely to work with the grocery stores rather than 7-11. When I go to the grocery store, it is usually a planned trip, so I might remember to take some plastic bags. However, when I go into a 7-11, 99% of the time it is unplanned (and I'm sure as heck not going to drive home to get a plastic bag first -- would sort of defeat the environmentally friendly aspect of reusing plastic bags, wouldn't it? 555)

Like I said, I thinks it's the right type of thinking , just the wrong type of store.