Bangkok Buried Under Growing Mountain Of Waste

[george]

Bangkok buried under growing mountain of waste

BANGKOK: —The booming city of Bangkok comes with lots of full bins. After years of battling pollution, congestion and other big-city evils, the teeming Thai capital is threatened with being swamped by its own garbage.

Bangkok has the highest per capita trash production of any Southeast Asian metropolis, bar Singapore, with 1.3 kilograms of solid waste each person everyday, according to the World Bank.

The figure is set to rise as Thailand recovers from the Asian financial crisis of 1997 to 1998 and promotes consumerism in an economy kicking into high gear.

But it lags desperately behind model recycling cities like Seoul or New York with authorities reclaiming just 3.5 percent of Bangkok’s household waste.

“If [Thailand’s] current trends hold and recycling rates remain low, it is likely that by the end of the decade, municipal waste generation would grow 25 percent and industrial hazardous waste would grow 35 percent,” the World Bank said in its Thailand Environment Monitor 2003.

Bangkok’s trash, a quarter of the entire kingdom’s, has tripled since 1985, to 9,500 tons a day last year, Thailand’s Pollution Control Department (PCD) says. The figure will double again by 2015.

Some 2.5 million cubic meters of mainly household effluent is discharged every day into the city’s canals and the Chao Phraya River, which runs through the city with infectious and hazardous waste increasing.

“In Southeast Asia Bangkok is at the top,” said Tara Buakamsri, toxics campaigner at Greenpeace’s regional headquarters in Bangkok.

“It’s a crisis,” he told AFP. “The government could be setting up plastic recycling centers and small-scale composting facilities in Bangkok, but these are not happening. Right now it is not their priority or political will.”

The shortcomings are many: inadequate policing and recycling policies, insufficient penalties for dumping waste with piles of it growing at alarming rates on Bangkok’s outskirts.

Upgrading existing landfills on Bangkok’s outskirts would cost an estimated $1 billion and while city leaders have pledged to tackle the problems, mountains of waste keep growing.

Former Bangkok governor Samak Sundaravej, whose term ended in August, claimed in a joint UN/PCD report this year that the authorities were working hard to solve problems of solid waste, along with air and water pollution.

But Tara believes Samak’s trash talk was just that. Greenpeace rests its hopes on replacement Apirak Kosayodhin, a 43-year-old opposition Democrat who vowed during campaigning to tackle the issue.

Apirak admits he has a battle on his hands. The World Bank says Thais throw away 4.5 million tons of recyclable materials worth $400 million every year.

“The people who live in Bangkok, they don’t really care, they just simply throw stuff in the garbage can,” the governor told reporters on Friday less than a fortnight after taking office.

He wants to promote recycling, cut the use of excessive packaging and start community projects that provide economic incentives for people to get involved.

“We’ll do it in small places first, and once it has been proved it will expand all over Bangkok,” he said, but gave few details.

Mounting waste also means potential profits and critics said vested interests were battling for control of the lucrative trade in waste management.

The issue turned deadly three years ago when gunmen killed an activist, Suwat Wongpiyasathit, who spearheaded a campaign against a reeking garbage landfill in a province bordering Bangkok. Five men are standing trial over his death.

Residents are wading into the muck themselves to improve conditions.

Campaigner Mattana Thanomphan has struggled for 20 years to persuade communities to change their littering ways, reduce waste and recycle.

“This is the citizens’ responsibility, but government should have more options for them to get involved,” Mattana said.

“Instead of just increasing garbage fees, they should give households economic incentives” to reduce waste and recycle.”

Filling the gap in Bangkok, as in so many Asian cities, is an army of private rubbish collectors who have spawned a thriving side industry.

Up to 20,000 self-employed trash collectors are estimated to be working in the city, keep the garbage at bay and boost Bangkok’s recycling rate to 11 percent. “They are the reason it’s not a catastrophe,” Tara said.

--AFP 2004-09-19

[Dickie]

One thing I noticed in LoS is how the locals don't give a toss about litter. Especially in CM at the waterfalls. While I carried the empty water bottles in a bag until a bin could be found, the thais just slung theirs anywhere. The place was heavy with broken glass and empty beer bottles. Pity. It spoiled an otherwise gorgeous place.

[penzman]

I sort it all out, plastic, glass, metal, cardboard and paper and bring it over to an old lady who used to be our neighbour in the village next door. I get a nice wai and a smile every time. She sells the stuff and gets some cash in return.

I may start keeping it the day she drives down the soi in her brand new BMW

I often see people sifting throuh my garbage bins early in the morning I don`t mind but hate the mess they make in the process

If you have no clue who to give the recyclables to, leave them on the sidewalk and see how long it stays...

[john b good]

So now Bangkok can claim to be the garbage capital of the world as well as "world fashion hub, international travel hub, sex capital of the world etc"

And it is gonna get worse

[benlee53]

Here in phuket,

the trash is put in plastic bags and then in the disposal binds .I see the thais come along and go through the trash and then take the plastic bags ,which leaves the loose trash in the binds so the trash collector has to dig out the trash Which BTW they don't so the binds stay full or the trash is philed up around them.

Personaly I think plastic will be the down fall of this country beauty.

i STILL CAN'T UNDERSTAND WHY I SEE THE GOVERMENT PAYS PEOPLE TO WEED WACK ALONG THE HIGHWAYS AND LEAVE THE TRASH EXPOSED WHATS THERE THINKING?THEY MAKE IT LOOK WORSE!!!!!!!!!!

[catch a ride to danang]

i don't know... thailand is one of the dirtiest places i've traveled to. i've seen so much crap at the bottom of the ocean... ships dumping solid acid battery cells on to reefs... ah it's great- this campaign is going to take forever

[ayakiawe]

This is unfortunately the truth of the matter.

The vast majority of Asians (and not just the Asians unfortunately) have not formed the mental understanding yet of the differences between a “plastic bag” and a “banana leaf”.

It’s basically the same thing to them.

Something that holds say, “food” to be used and then discarded as conveniently as possible later when not needed.

This normally is anywhere outside their personal space boundaries (about 2 feet around them normally) which as we all know must be perfectly “clean”.

With their bodies, cloths and such they think they are “clean” and that is good enough for them.

Yet these days these same products they use on their bodies are actually full of toxic chemicals found in their soaps/ shampoos/ powders and most of the other modern personal body care products but that’s another subject.

After their personal space boundaries end, literally “anything” goes!

Now this is fine if you are playing in a natural world with banana and palm leaf products all around you as in the past.

But now with “our” modern consumer products; like styrofoam, plastics and many other dangerous chemicals, you have an environmental nightmare that doesn’t go away once we all “wake up” to these facts.

The Government could control most types of solid waste pollution very easy with setting up effective laws against the use of single use plastic bags, Styrofoam, etc and make mandatory use of biodegradable products and recycling of other durable packaging materials.

But they don’t because they are involved in making BIG money from these short term disposable products with unfortunately long term catastrophic environmental consequences.

I call this the worst sort of leadership possible.

If Mr. Toxin (note his nickname) had any leadership qualities worth anything to Thailand he would recognize this and set up a system immediately to remedy 90 % of the problem by enacting a quick set of new effective laws which protected the environment.

This man though seems only interested in building up his financial empire of financial wealth at the expense of everything and anything else, particularly the environment.

So there you have it, bad leaders create bad quality of life for the county, in this case for possibly forever.

Cleaning up toxins from the environment can take literally thousands of years in some cases.

I am waiting for the day a leader has the mental understanding (duh?) and conviction (balls) to do what it takes to create a clean, “environmentally friendly economy” with lasting results.

So far I have not heard anything (total blank) on the subject from just about anyone in this county except for the King which everyone seems to “listen” too but take little or no action on what he says unfortunately.

Mr. Toxin Shitty Water I am afraid will go down as the most pathetic leader who finished destroying the Thai environment once and for all.

[Zoltan]

Good posting I hope some of the Thia people read this and have some respect for their country. One of thier favorite sayings is come to Beautiful Thialand. I wonder how long they will be able to say this?

[DJ Pat]

Thailand ain't so amazing anymore is it?

[farangnoi]

thailand is one of the dirtiest places i've traveled to

Never Been to Amsterdam, The Netherlands before? No day without dogsht under your shoes.

[Nemesis]

I lived w / friends in a apartment house in BKK. The trash was picked up virtually everyday. The cost per month for 12 people's trash? 100 baht.

The Thai muncipal government body is not even charging enough to cover the cost of trash pick-up never mind future dump sites, recycling costs, etc. It was explained to me that if they charge too much, the people will dump the trash on vacant lots all over BKK.

Thai planning - oxymoron

[marquess]

I have often noticed that there are alot of poor people collecting rubbish for recycling. Rubbish which would otherwise, not be recycled

[Ijustwannateach]

^Yes, I used to feel guilty about throwing away the glass and aluminum which I formerly would have separated- but then I realized there IS that army of private recyclers out there- look at the old lady/stinky man who pokes around in the outside rubbish bins, and you'll see they're extracting almost any form of recyclable for sale to a big factory. In Burger King when I order a diet soda I make it easier on the staff by putting the can on top of the bin, 'cause I know otherwise they'll dig through that awful trash to get it.

Styrofoam and plastic bags are the worst, though I believe some of the plastic bags are also collected and recycled. And as the above poster mentioned, Toxin hardly helps with his little promotions of styrofoam floats for Loy Krathong ! Ayakiawe is spot on with his analysis of Asian perception of trash- even in Japan, which is supposedly an "advanced" nation, they go overboard on the (formerly biodegradable) packaging for traditional reasons, and the beaches and parks are just as littered as they are here.

Hiking up a volcano once with a Filipino friend, I tried to discourage him from throwing away an empty potato chip bag on the mountain (finally had to pick it up and carry it myself the rest of the way)- his response- "this is not Japan!" No awareness or pride in the country's natural cleanliness at all.

"Steven"

[slim]

Never Been to Amsterdam, The Netherlands before? No day without dogsht under your shoes.

Can't believe this post.

I've been to Amsterdam many times and even boxed out of my lid you couldn't compare it with Bangkok for pollution in any way shape or form.

I'll take your word on the dog shit, not that I've ever noticed, but BKK must have 1000x more dogs than Amsterdam.

[olaus]

Here in Isaan it costs only 10 Baht per month for really good garbage service. It is cheap, I think. Still people throw litter everywhere. We have a few small forests still left. They are full of garbage.

Young people are sitting all night drinking beer at (what could be) beautiful places near water. When a bottle is empty they throw it against a tree or a stone to crush it. In the morning there is garbage all around the place, especially in the water.

Thailand is really dirty, and nobody I have talked with is at all interested. They say "we have enough problems". Which problems ?, I ask. "To keep us alive, to get food, to take care of our chilren and old people, to get money for medicine."

Olaus

[Nemesis]

low class people all over the world litter. Thais are no different.

[madmitch]

As kids in England we were subjected to public information films on TV, many of which aimed at stopping public littering. Kids here just follow their parents and throw litter out of the car window, usually biodegradable items tied in a plastic bag! Along the railway track must be among the filthiest parts of Thailand. Education is needed or the new generation will destroy the remaining beautiful parts of Thailand.

Idea for the CEO: make the recipients of the village funds use part of it for establishing recycling facilities. Not a vote winner, unfortunately.

[BlackJack]

the som tarm lady told me that the bulk of the rubbish is the gold privilege card

said to be taking up huge amounts of space in the rubbish dumps

[HedKeeQuai]

gotta agree, when I first arrived I was shocked at the amount of garbage practically everywhere, and the dodginess of the sanitation department's method of cleaning it up and disposing of it.

But one thing I was pleasantly surprised about it, mentioning all the dog as said before. No dog sh*t. I've probably seen thousands of stray dogs but not once have I seen a turd.

At least the dogs are thinking of the future

[kat]

As kids in England we were subjected to public information films on TV, many of which aimed at stopping public littering. Kids here just follow their parents and throw litter out of the car window, usually biodegradable items tied in a plastic bag! Along the railway track must be among the filthiest parts of Thailand. Education is needed or the new generation will destroy the remaining beautiful parts of Thailand.

Idea for the CEO: make the recipients of the village funds use part of it for establishing recycling facilities. Not a vote winner, unfortunately.

That is a good analysis and a ###### fantastic idea.

[marquess]

I'll take your word on the dog shit, not that I've ever noticed, but BKK must have 1000x more dogs than Amsterdam.

The dog crap in amsterdam is terrible, but at least it is biodegradable.

[huahin]

There seems to be a lot of Farang puritans all of a sudden on this post, the old saying "when in Rome do as the Romans do" When in Thailand why be different then the Thais, it's no wonder the do-gooder Farang gets starred at.

[salty]

Coming from Ireland I would be loathe to point the finger at anyone else. Main streets of nearly every place here are filthy most morning. Drunks vomiting and peeing late at night. Garbage thrown everywhere.

[capt_canada42]

When I came to Thailand there wasn't much use of plastic bags people used banana leaves to wrap things in and wicker baskets to carry things home in. Then came plastics because people where used to just throwing things away like they did with banana leaves they did the same with plastics. The trouble was the plastics don't break down quickly.

It didn't take many years before plastics took over from Banana leaves and even the wicker baskets disappeared as bigger plastic bags became available to carry products in. Also plastic drink bottles appeared and littered the landscape.

It used to be that I could wait until rainy season came so that the jungle would hide the trash that was every where. I couldn't believe the people were so clean but that they treated there country as a trash bin.

How many times have you followed a bus taking children home from schools and watched the kids throw there trash over side side of the bus, same for public buses and pick ups and cars.

Yes there are people picking up and recycling plastics steel, batteries, glass and this is helping alot but we need to eduacate people more.

Since TV is the great Satan that hypnotizes the public every night why don't we do the same as the Japanese do.

That is at the end of every half hour or hour they have 30 seconds to a minute of time that is dedicated to bettering society by teaching people not to litter, not to pass on turns.

Why don't we have adds asking about the sewage in the rivers teaching about the proper use of antibiotics.

Lets make people aware so they can take charge of there own lives and there society.

All we have to do is get the TV stations care about there own country and people for 1 minute an hour. In Japan many new people trying to get into advertising do these adds for free to help them get noticed by paying advertisers.

[DaveYo]

Here is the catch, now does Thailand have the large recyclers to sort and separate trash, and incinerators to burn it what it can burn and make a hole deep and large enough to dump the trash like they do in USA. Also some of these countries load the trash into barges and go out to deep sea and they dump it out there.

Thailand again is so far behind in enviromental technology to be let alone smart on how to solve their own problems. Why, of course they seek others from countries to not only build and create, but also to give them direction and answers to solve their problems because they cannot think for themselves.

That is why Bangkok smells so bad, and the air is horrendous. Try taking a ride out of the city and head for the boondocks like 30 kilometers away and you will notice the difference of the air you breathe.

Comprende?????

Daveyo.

Besides, they don't and won't spend that kind of cash to build such facilities that will benefit them. They want it in their pockets so they can live for now, and not worry about the future. Many Thai people want to show off and look good to others, but never want to admit they are so broke and so heavy in debt that they will never see the light of day being debt free.

If you don't believe me, ask around if there is one honest Thai person who can tell you of their people overall.

Daveyo

Because of this being the situation of Debt, that is why Thailand has that law banning foreigners from owning land and homes, because if we do get to own the land and house, yes we will pay for it and these Thai people then will pay off their debts all over the place, and then what have they got left to own overall. once that gets done????? NOTHING. Now do you expats understand??????

[plachon]

As kids in England we were subjected to public information films on TV, many of which aimed at stopping public littering. Kids here just follow their parents and throw litter out of the car window, usually biodegradable items tied in a plastic bag! Along the railway track must be among the filthiest parts of Thailand. Education is needed or the new generation will destroy the remaining beautiful parts of Thailand.

Idea for the CEO: make the recipients of the village funds use part of it for establishing recycling facilities. Not a vote winner, unfortunately.

The "subjection" to propaganda back in UK, doesn't seem to have done much good as far as littering goes.

Last time I was back there, I couldn't help noticing that at nearly every public layby, just outside towns, there were piles of rubbish just off the road. Everything from disposable nappies to fridges. But dominating it all was McDonald's, Burger King & KFC wrappers, with the inevitable Coke cans. The advent of the US-style Drive-In and the inability of a whole generation (bar a few poncey TV-cooks like Jamie Oliver) to cook for themselves anything more than a microwave meal, has led to the sacrilege of the British kerbside. Gary and Sharon Supersize themselves nightly and can't even be bothered to walk the 5 yards to the litter bin, once they've finshed their fat and sugar saturated "sustenance". As corporate-behest Britain is not going to close down the Drive-Ins any time soon, the govt. should at least add an environmental tax on every Eat out meal, to pay for the trashing of the countryside.

Thailand, which is 20 years behind UK in trash awareness terms, but probably on a par in terms of per capita generation of waste and pollutants, could catch up quickly with t he "West" (which has got NOTHING to be smug about on waste), IF there was bit of political will from the top. Apirak has got potential, if he can not get siderailed by white elephants, but absolutely forget the Toxic one for doing anything positive on this score. Because getting to grips with the problem implies less consumption, that runs absolutely opposite to his maximum consumption creed.

Thinking globally and acting locally is absolutely essential for waste management.

[valleyman]

There is no short trerm solution.....the most effective way of combatting the plague of litter is through the schools. But first of all, the govt simply has to appoint a litter czar, with the authority to impose fines, employ garbage collection patrols (work release programs for soft offence convicts, for instance) and to work with the education minister to establish programs in all schools, teaching pride in the environment along with the consequences of litter proliferation, and that money alone does not guarantee a quality of life. School kids, once motivated, can become the ambassadors for a clean environment. Also, get companies involved, to be responsible for the areas around their offices. Service clubs, such as Rotary and Lions, are responsive to campaigns such as these. Perhaps the Thai ruk thai can be changed to Thai ruk prated?

[350torana]

There are litter Czars. They are dressed in brown and chase down falang smokers demanding 2000 baht but are oblivous to the locals littering. Don't get me wrong, it is not hard to stub your smoke out on the bottom of your shoe and find the closest bin:)

Where i live the garbage collection is frequent and cheap. That said, anyone had the misfortune to be stuck behind a garbage truck in traffic? I have never visited a Bangkok waste disposal site(tip) but imagine even the seagulls would give it a wide birth

Education and recycling are the only ways to lessen the problem .

[Khun Larry]

Personaly I think plastic will be the down fall of this country beauty.

The beaches and Tourist sites I have seen are trash ridden. Thais just throw their trash around indiscriminately.