Dirty Beaches

[barrybike]

Just last week I was on a beach in Cambodia , there were a couple of town employees walking up and down the whole time I was there , what were they doing ??? GARBAGE PICKING .

probably getting aluminium cans for recycling

[dumball]

Just last week I was on a beach in Cambodia , there were a couple of town employees walking up and down the whole time I was there , what were they doing ??? GARBAGE PICKING .

probably getting aluminium cans for recycling

Not exactly , the little urchins collect anything re-cyclable , the employees pick up everything else and do an excellent job I may add .

[tw25rw]

A lot of that rubbish has been circulating around the ocean for years and wasn't dropped in Thailand. If you go out to sea and see the amount of filth floating on it, you would see it's not just a Thai problem. And even if they go down every day and collect it, they don't have the infratructure to handle it without a load of it ending up back in the sea again.

Biodegradeable packaging would help as would some way of making money from recycling old can and bottles.

Edited March 26, 2009 by tw25rw

[robbiecia]

Anything ending up floating around in the Gulf of Thailand, hasn't got anywhere else to drift too

The whole area acts like a massive garbage trap

I agree "The man" could easily sort it out

[Shagger]

If they offered an incentive to people to clean up klongs, streets etc and as some of the postings suggest, run TV campain, then I think peoples mindsets would change over time but this would take a long time.

As for the poor coral reefs offshore, there is no time as the rubbish destorys them and what take 100000's of years to grow, takes a Thai, 10 seconds to destoy with either dynaminte, garbarge or their hands.

I just think that it is a shame that a country that want to promote tourists and have the benefit of the cash flow, does not take a pro active role in the conservation of the country and as the one posting says, the actually charge tourists for this (200Bht) on Koh Chang !!

At the ned of the day they need to take a serious look at what they are doing to their own country and what effect it will have on the country in the future and realize that all is not well and that they could well be renamed "TIPLAND" on the the next Google Earth.

[neverdie]

A lot of that rubbish has been circulating around the ocean for years and wasn't dropped in Thailand. If you go out to sea and see the amount of filth floating on it, you would see it's not just a Thai problem. And even if they go down every day and collect it, they don't have the infratructure to handle it without a load of it ending up back in the sea again.

Biodegradeable packaging would help as would some way of making money from recycling old can and bottles.

Yes, a very valid point, tw25rw. When touring around Oz, I spent some time on Cape York & noticed some of their far north eastern beaches (Chilli Beach etc) were littered fairly badly & I couldnt understand it as most travellers in the remote areas of Aust are very considerate with their rubbish & theres virtually no population of people living near there.

I actually took the time to look around some of the rubbish & it became very evident that some of it had been floating in the ocean for a very long time & some of the stuff had labels that were still visible, yet not in the english language.....I assumed that some of it, probably the majority of it was INTERNATIONAL RUBBISH, that got 'hooked up' on the tip of Australia.

Whilst this is also possible here in Thailand, you only need to take a bit of a look at the rubbish on the beaches & other places in TIPLAND to realise that most of this stuff is 'Thai' related trash.....half the stuff on the beaches lays exactly in the same place where the poor inconsiderate soles that dumped it, left it. You only have to watch the people walking around, living there etc & see what the do with their trash to realise where the majority of it is coming from.

[Mario2008]

Woman unfriendly comment has been deleted.

[barky]

I have gone down to the beach behind my condo one day and its very nice and clean only to see it absolutely filthy the next day. Like I said, I'm not defending anyone because all that crap shouldn't have been thrown or dumped into the ocean in the first place, but don't assume that the beaches at Koh Samet are always like that.

I beg to differ.

They will always be like that as long as rubbish is dumped without concern.

Shame on Thailand. Too busy fighting each other for the right to pilfer the countries coffers to actually have any time left over to spend a minute or two thinking about the future.

I will always have "Keep Australia Beautiful" etched into my head from the gov't campaigns to...well, keep Australia beautiful. My conscience won't allow me to throw any rubbish out the window, and all that took was an ad campaign during prime time tv during my childhood. That is all it takes, a few ads during the rubbish Thai soaps and after a few years the Thais too will begin to develop an environmental conscience. Maybe...

I hear what you say but we are talking about different outlooks on life. Thais generally dont think about tomorrow or the next generation or that maybe it will eventually turn-off foreigners coming here to enjoy the beaches. They think about how much money they can make here and now!!

I watched a programme on chanel 46 last night on Visions Austria. Wow, Austrians have much to be proud of. They care for their environment both urban and rural passionately. Generally, most white Australian adults and most school kids of all backgroungs do too.

[neverdie]

The Thai Govt did recently run a campaign about littering.....it said something like, "Don't litter, its bad for tourism". <deleted> You've got to be joking, is that the best they could do?

[Geekfreaklover]

I have gone down to the beach behind my condo one day and its very nice and clean only to see it absolutely filthy the next day. Like I said, I'm not defending anyone because all that crap shouldn't have been thrown or dumped into the ocean in the first place, but don't assume that the beaches at Koh Samet are always like that.

I beg to differ.

They will always be like that as long as rubbish is dumped without concern.

Shame on Thailand. Too busy fighting each other for the right to pilfer the countries coffers to actually have any time left over to spend a minute or two thinking about the future.

I will always have "Keep Australia Beautiful" etched into my head from the gov't campaigns to...well, keep Australia beautiful. My conscience won't allow me to throw any rubbish out the window, and all that took was an ad campaign during prime time tv during my childhood. That is all it takes, a few ads during the rubbish Thai soaps and after a few years the Thais too will begin to develop an environmental conscience. Maybe...

I hear what you say but we are talking about different outlooks on life. Thais generally dont think about tomorrow or the next generation or that maybe it will eventually turn-off foreigners coming here to enjoy the beaches. They think about how much money they can make here and now!!

I watched a programme on chanel 46 last night on Visions Austria. Wow, Austrians have much to be proud of. They care for their environment both urban and rural passionately. Generally, most white Australian adults and most school kids of all backgroungs do too.

Edited March 28, 2009 by Geekfreaklover

[neverdie]

barky, I think you are completely accurate with the comments you make, especially the last sentence.

[Richb2004v2]

I imagine that some of the rubbish on the Thai beaches could be from elsewhere, but having cleaned a beach for a few months I am fairly sure at least 90% of what I saw was from the Thais. I saw the fisherman on the shore leave their plastic rubbish and fishing paraphernalia where they dropped it. I saw people picnicking leave there debris behind, and I saw the massive amount of rubbish left all over the beach after each weekend and especially each holiday. I don't ever remember seeing a Thai put anything in the abundant bins. As I said earlier 'that's someone else's job'. Plus, the fact that the road sides and grass verges of Thailand are also a mass of garbage leads me to conclude that we can't really proportion very much of the blame to other country's that share the water.

I have truly never seen such a filthy beach as the one I tried to clean. There was literally all manner of waste, from babies diapers, to light bulbs, paint tins, fishing line, hundreds of flip flops, clothing, hundreds of food trays, fire works, miles of rope, dozens and dozens of industrial sacks, rice sacks, cans, tooth brushes, and probably millions of drinking straws. And in amongst this were Thais having picnics, enjoying the scenery, dropping more litter, swimming literally in the middle of what I have described, and taking family photographs with the back drop of garbage. Amazing Thailand and amazing Thais!!

[Birdman]

I imagine that some of the rubbish on the Thai beaches could be from elsewhere, but having cleaned a beach for a few months I am fairly sure at least 90% of what I saw was from the Thais. I saw the fisherman on the shore leave their plastic rubbish and fishing paraphernalia where they dropped it. I saw people picnicking leave there debris behind, and I saw the massive amount of rubbish left all over the beach after each weekend and especially each holiday. I don't ever remember seeing a Thai put anything in the abundant bins. As I said earlier 'that's someone else's job'. Plus, the fact that the road sides and grass verges of Thailand are also a mass of garbage leads me to conclude that we can't really proportion very much of the blame to other country's that share the water.

I have truly never seen such a filthy beach as the one I tried to clean. There was literally all manner of waste, from babies diapers, to light bulbs, paint tins, fishing line, hundreds of flip flops, clothing, hundreds of food trays, fire works, miles of rope, dozens and dozens of industrial sacks, rice sacks, cans, tooth brushes, and probably millions of drinking straws. And in amongst this were Thais having picnics, enjoying the scenery, dropping more litter, swimming literally in the middle of what I have described, and taking family photographs with the back drop of garbage. Amazing Thailand and amazing Thais!!

In that waste are used hospital items too. I have seen that on beaches north of Pattaya as well as on the islands in the South. Used bloody bandages, first-aid things, injection needles or broken glass syringes...no joke! Very dangerous indeed, if someone steps on one of that barefooted. Don't think, that that stuff was disinfected before dumping.

[WorldwideALOHA]

Pretty much agree with all the posts here.

However, I am quite disappointed in the number of foreign tourists that still dump their cig butts, fruit, food, and small wrappers in the sea. Most of these people know better and many Thai's mimick the action or vice versa.

As with many things in Asia, it's a shame the authorities don't pick up on the huge amount of revenue that could be garnered from policing simple littering on beaches. In Hawaii they have been doing it and it works quite well. Not to mention the beatings that can be handed out if you drop a cig butt in the wrong place with the right crowd around.

Any and all solutions would be welcome.

Aloha.

[nycboy57]

I think that part of the reason no one cares is that there is no money in it. Everything in Thailand is driven by money, and in picking up litter there seems to be none to be made. If just one government official worked out a way to make money I am sure things could be changed.

Maybe they should start a mobile phone for garbage campaign. The latest mobile for a tonne of rubbish. That should have the place clear in a day or so .

Alternatively, as I've said before, it would only take some words from 'the man' and a clean Thailand could be achieved. Sadly that would be too much like common sense or logic.

Richard,

I think there is definately some merit in the claim that money has something to do with it, but it also comes around with mindset. I have seen people here walking down the street that litter right next to a garbage bin. People that dump their household rubbish in bins across the street from where they are living & so on, its incredible. The mind set of people needs to change, if everyone did their little bit, it would make a HUGE difference.

I told you previously about a guy stopping his car on the side of the road & emptying out the inside of the car and the boot into the table drain before driving off. Closer inspection of his trash revealed heaps of bottles & recyclables & it was only a few hundred metres from a business that gives cash for that stuff.

My grandfather in law is onto this now, there is a klong which runs down one side of his property, he has set up a 'rubbish' trap there & is fishing all the collectables out of the klong and piling them up, when he gets a certain amount, a man comes down in the truck and takes it all away, leaving the old bloke with some $$. Sadly some of the stuff he fishes out of the klong cant be recycled, so he sets fire to it.....which is definately not the best thing but I have seen a massive change in the appearance and smell of the klong in that area.

Definately something needs to be done here to improve the situation, so by doing my bit & showing those around me I care about doing that, I hope it catches on, but I wont be holding my breath.

Good to know that my move to this Condo in Sukhumvit Soi 13 Trendy is not the only place that people throw trash on floor rather than in the bin. I think this is considered a high price condo starting at 20,000 baht a month for small studio. Allot of foreigners here by the day and many different Nationalities. When I saw that the trash bin on each of the 17 floors had garbage on the floor rather than in the bin I asked Juristic dept. why? They said they cannot force people to throw in bin. So I put up sign saying RATS< MICE Bugs please throw in bin. Still on floor a few feet away. I see a young woman in her 30's throw on floor by the trash bin entrance and I ask her why? she said too far to walk to bin. Another man Japanese I was told by someone carrying a set of Golf Clubs to the elevator threw it on the floor by the bin area. Again I was shocked. The next day the sign I wrote was removed and I had a Thai friend call up and they put a small sign with arrow in English and Thai to throw in bin. Still no response from Condo owners when I told the committee and one of the members said take pics and send to him for the next committee meeting. I did this daily for two weeks, piles of garbage and the girls who clean kept coming to my floor and bringing the bin closer to the door and still they threw the trash on the floor even two feet from bin. Shocked and disgusted I found a thread here about google translations and copied and pasted the request to throw trash in bin to avoid RATS< MICE and Bugs in Thai, Japanese, English, Chinese, Arabic, Dutch, Swedish and a few other languages. I post on my floor and in one of the six elevators. It has been a few days and the signs are still up and no trash on floor so far on my floor. I will put up in the other elevators in the next few days and maybe just maybe this might work. I come from NYC and it is filthy on the subways and people throw trash on the street. When I came here for my retirement i found the Bts and MRT so clean. HuaHin was not clean of course I could not go swimming in Pataya and Krabi was not good for me or Koh Samui. The only place that the water and beach seemed good was Phuket. I hope that things change. The streets around this soi are used for toilets. The swimming pool and jacuzzi seems to be used as toilet also. The parents of some of the children that actually urinate in the jacuzzi and pool don't care if the farang complain about the kids doing it in the pool. I was sadly surprised of this.Cigarette butts on the stairway was common and no one cares. Maybe I am too sensitive at my age to lazy and filthy behavior.I still am greatful to be able to live here where my pension goes much further than in NYC. bye

[Wombat6]

If the Thai authorities were really serious about solving their pollution/rubbish problems, they should finance a delegation to visit Australia and talk to the Clean up Australia Committee which did a great job in that country. A couple of suggestions is that children should be taught in school about the various problems....ie Mosquito breeding in discarded bottle/plastic bags etc.....fish being killed by eating rubbish and so it goes on.

Another suggestion is to Ask for the Kings assistance in asking people to bin it instead of discarding....they will take notice of him

[Junglejumbo]

Rayong beaches have been pretty filthy the 3-4x that I've been and there's a line in the water just before it curves to form a wave which is made up of rubbish. You can't swim in Rayong without lots of rubbish hitting you. My friend came out of the water with a plastic bag sticking to her back.

The dirtiest of all of them all are the islands off Trang in the South, I suspect.Koh Mak and the others. Those beaches are just so littered and so too is the water--you simply can't walk without slippers or your feet would get cut up. I think there must be a rubbish dump in the vicinity.

Pattaya sea water I stopped swimming in about 10 years ago. The stinging on the skin whilst you're in the water is not "water insects" as some Thais will tell you, its chemicals. Some pretty dangerous ones too.

However, major tourist beaches like Patong and most of Koh Samui still seems fine to me. Most of these are cleaned up by either the deck chair renters or the local authorities.

[Underbelly]

Thailand just need to employ people to clean the beaches and invest in better equipment too. Australia was a pretty messed up place 15 plus years ago for the little population it had.

Alot of Aussies still throw rubbish everywhere but we have cleaners with great equipment that goes around the city cleaning up and beach cleaners.

When clean up Australia day was introduced it made a huge difference.

But Thailand is a third world country and I guess you cant expect too much yet. I see plenty of Thai's who take there rubbish with them also, but many more that dont.

And I think all the posters calling Thai's stupid and ignorant idiots need to relax a bit.

[neverdie]

Thailand just need to employ people to clean the beaches and invest in better equipment too. Australia was a pretty messed up place 15 plus years ago for the little population it had.

Alot of Aussies still throw rubbish everywhere but we have cleaners with great equipment that goes around the city cleaning up and beach cleaners.

When clean up Australia day was introduced it made a huge difference.

But Thailand is a third world country and I guess you cant expect too much yet. I see plenty of Thai's who take there rubbish with them also, but many more that dont.

And I think all the posters calling Thai's stupid and ignorant idiots need to relax a bit.

Underbelly & human trash.....those two stories go hand in hand (No personal offence intended).

I don't think Australia was ever as bad as Thailand is. If you increased the population there to 65 odd million, it still wouldnt be that bad. To get the same amount of people per square km, you would almost need a billion people....I can imagine Australia would get alot dirtier then.

Having said that, alot of it comes from the mindset of the people, watching what goes on here & comparing it with my experience in Australia, there is no comparison.

[Underbelly]

Thailand just need to employ people to clean the beaches and invest in better equipment too. Australia was a pretty messed up place 15 plus years ago for the little population it had.

Alot of Aussies still throw rubbish everywhere but we have cleaners with great equipment that goes around the city cleaning up and beach cleaners.

When clean up Australia day was introduced it made a huge difference.

But Thailand is a third world country and I guess you cant expect too much yet. I see plenty of Thai's who take there rubbish with them also, but many more that dont.

And I think all the posters calling Thai's stupid and ignorant idiots need to relax a bit.

Underbelly & human trash.....those two stories go hand in hand (No personal offence intended).

I don't think Australia was ever as bad as Thailand is. If you increased the population there to 65 odd million, it still wouldnt be that bad. To get the same amount of people per square km, you would almost need a billion people....I can imagine Australia would get alot dirtier then.

Having said that, alot of it comes from the mindset of the people, watching what goes on here & comparing it with my experience in Australia, there is no comparison.

Just saying that it doesnt really come down to the people all that much, its not hiring many cleaners and not having the equipment.

New years day in Australia, we absolutely trash the place, its 10 times worse then Thai new years.

But we have the cleaners in and make the place spotless again, Thailand could do the same, invest more in cleaning and the place will be a better place.

Thats what I think anyway.

[BEENTHEREDONETHAT]

It is not all of Thailand that has filthy beaches, we live on the beach in Cha Am and the large majority of time the beach is very clean. The exception is when rough ocean brings in rubbish. When that happens it is usually cleaned up in a day or two.

Just took a walk at low tide today and I found one small piece of broken glass in a couple of kilometres. I picked it up to prevent anyone from cutting a foot. We live right next to a fishing village with about six boats. Never find any refuse from the boats or the village.

The nearby resorts occasionally have people out raking the beach. Can't comment on the main beach (about 4-5K north) as I never go there.

[Happy Jack]

You could do a 'thai visa' search & have a look at some of the other threads about some dirty beaches around Thailand.

No one is going to argue with you, its true, the situation in Thailand with filth, polution, littering ect is country wide. Natural resources are being raped here is such a voilent way the damage is probably irrevesible. Nobody seems to give a dam_n either, its a shame yes, but if you find 'Richards' thread about it you can see how the thais get a real good laugh at a farang that tries to make a difference.....you're pissing into the wind.

Want clean beaches.....go somewhere else, they are few and far between here.

Agree with you.........FILTHY. I am amazed when Russians come to "Amazing Thailand" and sit on the amazingly filthy beaches and swim in the amazingly filthy water and smile.

You haven't seen the Russian waterways then. Last time I was in that part of the world Finland was paying for the construction of a sewage plant in Russia just to keep the Russian sewage from flowing down to Finland - and the standard of filtering into the gulf of finland from Russia at that time was that anything bigger than a single bed floated right on out to the sea.

So that explains the Russians - but I agree - many Thai's just don't seem to understand - or even see polution.

[Richb2004v2]

At the end of the day Thais view the world completely differently. Sadly this sometimes results in low standards. Actually it generally results in low standards across the board. This ends up affecting everything. Even the Thai populated gyms I go to suffer from it. The Thais exercise and leave puddles of sweat all over the equipment. They generally never take a towel of any sort and never make an attempt to clean after themselves. Today was the first time I managed to give a guy the eye and induce him to clean after himself.

I find the same actions with other developing nationalities that I have spent time with. I have the exact same issues with the North African I work with, and the Filipinos.

[Robroy]

Having been driven out of Chiang Mai by the smoke pollution, 2-3 years ago I did a tour of about a dozen islands and beaches in the gulf. Every one of them was covered in plastic and rubbish. On some beaches there was more platic visible than sand. Phuket was the worst - even the less-used northern beaches - but even small islands I'd never heard of had lots of rubbish.

The cleanest beach was Ao Nang near Krabi, but it was hardly clean.

I asked lots of questions, but no-one seemed to know exactly where the rubbish came from. One person said an island off Ao Nang had a rubbish dump on iy next to the ocean; another said tourist boats; another said stuff just left on beaches. There's probably truth in all.

My gf of the time said she had once been on a ship going across the gulf, which contained tons of garbage collected from the streets of Bangkok. Halfway across the ship dumped its garbage into the gulf.

Partly because of Thailand's multiple environmental catastrophes I now live in Cambodia, however the beaches here are also filthy.

(The main advantage here is the absurd & ever-changing Thai visa regulatioins do not exist. Pay off a police official & you get your 13-month visa no questions asked, no leaving the country, etc etc.)

[liquidroof]

I don,t like beaches.

[Birdman]

It is not all of Thailand that has filthy beaches, we live on the beach in Cha Am and the large majority of time the beach is very clean. The exception is when rough ocean brings in rubbish. When that happens it is usually cleaned up in a day or two.

Same in the South. Stormy weather brings the litter from the ocean floor and the tides take it back later. A "natural phenomenon" since decades.

Imagine the Golf of Thailand without water from Samui to Bangkok. It must a desert of garbage.

[t.s]

while thailand certainly has its own vast litter issues, it is by no means alone.

see the following documentatry series on the pacific gyre:

http://www.vbs.tv/video.php?id=1485308505