Thailand Cutting Back On Plastic Bags

[Mali1964]

Start charging for plastic bags. Problem solved.

Yes Wales already charge 5 pence per bag & England are set to follow soon its the only way you will change peoples habits, all checkouts now in Asda & Tesco UK sell various eco friendly bags to reuse so its just that we will have to change our routine its a simple & great idea.

Edited April 23, 2009 by Mali1964

[joker]

7/11 are the worst offenders.

I go to buy a can of Coke, they give it to me in a plastic bag with 3 straws.

True story.

When I refuse a plastic bag for a coke can or other small items,

the staff in almost any 7-11 / Family Mart look at me as if I'm

from another planet! Believe me, there needs to be ALOT of

education for the average Thai on environment issues, not just

making posters and dressing up like cheerleaders, pretending

to promote 'green' products etc.

Take a look at almost any road in Isaan and see how much rubbish

is thrown along the sidebanks, almost all of it is thrown out of the

pick-up waste.

Or behind the bungalows on an island like Koh Samet - see the mountains

of plastic bottles!

And this campaign only lasts 'till June?????????????

[Mali1964]

7/11 are the worst offenders.

I go to buy a can of Coke, they give it to me in a plastic bag with 3 straws.

True story.

When I refuse a plastic bag for a coke can or other small items,

the staff in almost any 7-11 / Family Mart look at me as if I'm

from another planet! Believe me, there needs to be ALOT of

education for the average Thai on environment issues, not just

making posters and dressing up like cheerleaders, pretending

to promote 'green' products etc.

Take a look at almost any road in Isaan and see how much rubbish

is thrown along the sidebanks, almost all of it is thrown out of the

pick-up waste.

Or behind the bungalows on an island like Koh Samet - see the mountains

of plastic bottles!

And this campaign only lasts 'till June?????????????

Nothing is thrown from my pick up no more after a firm re education to my wife & family, now they use the same plastic bag from 7 to put all their rubbish in & dispose of at home

[jimbo38]

Just a plain "mai tung krab" works every time for me. No problems at all.

Make the bags stronger. Well, that is just the problem. They used to make them much thicker and stronger than they are now but some hot shot accountants decided they could make more money by making them thinner. Thats when everyone started double bagging.

The garbage cans disappeared from Grungtep's streets when people started putting bombs in them. It happened almost overnight.

Many supermarkets in the States will give you money for using your own bag. In the Grand Canyon we get a 10% discount on almost everything in the store if we have our own bag.

Edited April 23, 2009 by jimbo38

[Alex2353]

Start charging for plastic bags. Problem solved.

Yes, the move was extremely successful in Ireland, where it went nationwide many years ago. Nowadays, everyone has carrier bags in their car. The only people you see actually paying for plastic bags are usually embarassed to be doing so.

A Plastic carrier bag TAX was introduced in Ireland some years back as Ireland was similar to Thailand in that strewn plastic bags could be seen almost everywhere. Stuck in Trees, on fences, gates, parks, hedgerows and on our beautiful beaches.

This disgusting and unsightly problem is now a long distant memory and thing of the past. One will not see a single discarded bag anywhere now.

In principal the idea was sound, very effective and has achieved 100% success. The Irish Government first introduced a 15c levy some 5 years ago which has now risen to 22c per bag.

The supermarket check out operator will ask if you require a bag, or bags at check out and if so the charge will be added to your receipt as a separate entity on check out.

It is rare for people to request plastic bags now as most have their own reusable carry bag for placing in their shopping trolley. However, because of the considerable cost those who do require a bag or bags, retain them for careful use such as for bin liners or for packing items away.

The downside to all this is that we have gone to the complete opposite end of the scale here. Now when one enters the 7/11 equivalent here, such as convenient stores Spar, Mace or Supervalue (all V/expensive) to purchase 3-4 items, ie. a pastry, small carton of milk, etc, you are left standing like an idiot and are expected to carry your items out in the tail of your shirt.

Of course they have brown paper bags under counter (free) but will not offer unless you ask. Reasons I assume is that to hand out paper bags nilly willy over a one year period would eat into their already handsome profits.

And while I agree that Thailand should wake up an adopt a similar tax on bags, Ireland has become just too politically exact over the last decade thanks to Brussels and EU membership and this just P**es me off right off.

Chewing Gum tax is next.

[jimbeam1]

Cutting back on plastic bags

BANGKOK: -- On the occasion of Earth Day yesterday, the Natural Resource and Environment Ministry launched a campaign to cut plastic-bag consumption in the country by at least 10 per cent. Currently, Thais dispose of 1,800 tonnes of used plastic bags every day.

"We are focusing on plastic bags because they pose a serious threat to the environment," Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said. "If plastic-bag consumption is successfully reduced, carbon dioxide emissions will also drop."

Plastic does not compose on its own and with more than 40,000 tonnes of garbage collected every day, transportation to disposal facilities or landfills also gets expensive.

Suwit hopes the public will co-operate in the campaign, which runs until June 5.

"Plastic bags are a part of people's every day life, and they can make a difference right away," Suwit said.

The campaign has won participation from many businesses, including Foodlands, Villa Market, The Mall, Jusco, Siam Makro, Siam Paragon, Siam Centre, Carrefour, 7-Eleven, Robinson and Big C.

Suwit said his ministry was also planning to manufacture bio-plastic bags that can decompose naturally.

"Although bio-plastic bags cost more to produce, the government might introduce tax measures to help," he said, adding that the government was also adopting many measures to reduce global warming.

"We plan to reduce petrol consumption, increase green areas and introduce carbon labels," he said.

-- The Nation 2009-04-23

Follow the Breaking News here:

1. Sign up for Breaking Newsletter by email: http://www.thaivisa.com/353.0.html

2. Download our Toolbar for IE and Firefox: http://toolbar.thaivisa.com

3. Follow the Breaking News on Twitter: http://twitter.com/georgebkk

As was mentioned earlier. It will take an education programe. In schools, on televisionand on bill boards.

But with the campsign only running until the 5th June. Theres no chance of it doing any good. It will take at least a gereration.

jb1

[koto]

Cutting back on plastic bags

BANGKOK: -- On the occasion of Earth Day yesterday, the Natural Resource and Environment Ministry launched a campaign to cut plastic-bag consumption in the country by at least 10 per cent. Currently, Thais dispose of 1,800 tonnes of used plastic bags every day.

"We are focusing on plastic bags because they pose a serious threat to the environment," Natural Resources and Environment Minister Suwit Khunkitti said. "If plastic-bag consumption is successfully reduced, carbon dioxide emissions will also drop."

Plastic does not compose on its own and with more than 40,000 tonnes of garbage collected every day, transportation to disposal facilities or landfills also gets expensive.

Suwit hopes the public will co-operate in the campaign, which runs until June 5.

"Plastic bags are a part of people's every day life, and they can make a difference right away," Suwit said.

The campaign has won participation from many businesses, including Foodlands, Villa Market, The Mall, Jusco, Siam Makro, Siam Paragon, Siam Centre, Carrefour, 7-Eleven, Robinson and Big C.

Suwit said his ministry was also planning to manufacture bio-plastic bags that can decompose naturally.

"Although bio-plastic bags cost more to produce, the government might introduce tax measures to help," he said, adding that the government was also adopting many measures to reduce global warming.

"We plan to reduce petrol consumption, increase green areas and introduce carbon labels," he said.

-- The Nation 2009-04-23

Follow the Breaking News here:

1. Sign up for Breaking Newsletter by email: http://www.thaivisa.com/353.0.html

2. Download our Toolbar for IE and Firefox: http://toolbar.thaivisa.com

3. Follow the Breaking News on Twitter: http://twitter.com/georgebkk

Yeah right, when pigs fly....

Storm Drains Are to prevent flooding, Not for garbage, plastic, oil, butts

[plachon]

Back here in the UK when out walking your dog you must BY LAW dispose of your dogs sh1t in a plastic bag. These do gooders who brought that law out don't realise that a dog turd has a life of about 10 DAYS before it goes back to nature...ie eaten up by bugs and washed away by rain. When you put it in a plastic bag it takes up to 10 years to bio-degrade and even with the specially designed poop bags it still takes up to 4 years to bio-degrade.. The downside now is that everywhere you look there are plastic bags whith turds in , caught up in trees or just thrown over some wall, as nobody wants to carry a bag of sh1t home. YES PLASTIC BAGS ARE A PAIN.

Yes, I'm glad someobody else thinks this way. You can't look in many hedges these days without seeing dozens of little plastic shit-filled bags festooned in them. By trying to solve one problem, the town planners and overpaid H&S execs, created another one, which as you rightly state, prolongs the life of the offending crap which otherwise would have broken down quite quickly the way nature intended. This is not to excuse the owners of dogs who let their animals crap on public footpaths and then leave it for others to step in, but a little more joined-up thinking could have avoided the disgusting mess created in Britain's hedgerows by irresponsible pet owners.

Common sense and better awareness campaigns should have encouraged people with their wee pooper-scoopers to pick up the offending pile, and move it to the nearest bit of soil off the path and not in a place liable to be stepped in. If in a densely built up urban area, then fair enough, pick it up in a bag and responsibly dispose of it at the nearest suitable bin, but not bagging it in the middle of the countryside, as I often see.

Luckily in Thailand, nature works its course even faster than UK, and the shit is compost in no time. (There, had to give it a Thai-twist somewhere!)

[koto]

Cutting back on plastic bags

BANGKOK: -- On the occasion of Earth Day yesterday, the Natural Resource and Environment Ministry launched a campaign to cut plastic-bag consumption in the country by at least 10 per cent. Currently, Thais dispose of 1,800 tonnes of used plastic bags every day.

Can that number be right?

If 1 tonne = 1,000 kgs or 1,000,000 grams, and the average shopping bag (according to online sources) weighs 5.5 grams, and if Thais are diposing of 1,800 tonnes daily, that would work out to 327,272,727 bags everyday. In a country of 65,000,000 people that would work out to each and every Thai disposing of just over 5 bags each day, or 35 a week. And remember, that's 5 for each Thai including babies, school children, the elderly, etc. Seems ridiculously high to me, but perhaps my math is wrong.

Thank you for that. I thought exactly the same thing and couldn't get my head around the numbers. I was going to try and work it out before posting when I got down to your post. It would have taken me hours to work that out though !!

There are many things that are being left behind the pose a threat to our children, wildlife, natural waterways, plastic kills dolphins, turtles, whales, crabs, clams, sea birds, all type of land and sea life, smothers, kills the ocean floor, kills the soil under our feet, plastic takes years to decompose, also toxic cigarette butts, flicked out of car windows, on the beach, parks, lakes, everywhere, also taking up to 12 years to decompose, waiting for unknowing baby's, wildlife, waterways to ingest, killing, contaminating, many smokers don't realize and after reading this will change how they disgard their toxic butts, some are to lazy or unconcerned, about the voiceless, and will continue, Mahalo to the smokers that care, Karma to those that don't, Health and Happiness to All, One random act of kindness at a time

[goonerone]

and about time not only is it the amount of none degrable rubbish that is a concern but also they end up in the sea and turtels think they are jelly fish eat the and die take your own bag to tescos

[fozzy58uk]

I live in Talad Bangkae. Having watched the good local folk gladly wait 20 minutes in the boiling sun for the free bus then standing jammed like a sardine rather than pay 7 baht to sit on the almost empty regular buses going past every 30 seconds or so, I am 100% sure that if they had to pay 5 baht per plastic bag they would stop using them immediately. Problem solved.

[Pesche]

Again the usual upside down pyramid!!

"Suwit said his ministry was also planning to manufacture bio-plastic bags that can decompose naturally.

"Although bio-plastic bags cost more to produce, the government might introduce tax measures to help," he said, adding that the government was also adopting many measures to reduce global warming.

"We plan to reduce petrol consumption, increase green areas and introduce carbon labels," he said."

Khun Suwit shall invest into EDUCATION instead of manufacturing bio-plastic !!

It is the ATTITUDE that has to be changed !!!

It is the EDUCATION - to be aware of the damage (pollution) AND NOT ANOTHER WINDOW for industrial producers of bio-stuff to find a new niche!!!

Ah, yess a new way to make more profits!

Again - finding the solution while making more money !!

Keeping and cultivating IGNORANCE while pushing so called "solutions" and supporting profit makers!!

When will they OPEN their eyes !!!!

Disgusting, outraging, frustrating...

Incompetent !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

But - Poop-Pap - here is the solution!

Sorry to be frank !!

[spaceshipcrew]

10% does not help at all, better start with 50%

They really wanna make it better or they don´t, simple.

[damian5000]

I got tired of all the plastic bags collecting around my house so I found some reusable bags for shopping. I normally use at Tesco and have never been denied the use. I have experienced a variety of reactions, smiles, annoyance, cheers, surprise and not just from the clerks. Other shoppers in line have reacted as well. My wife is in the habit of using them as well and has received several comments from foreigns that they have never seen a Thai do this before.

It takes some time to create a shift in thinking just as it did in my country USA, Europe and Australia. Long ago I think everybody had to provide their own containers when going to the market, then bags were provided for convenience and now the cycle is completed but must break habits. Makro is doing it already making customers provide their own bags.

congrats on that... i think the best way to change things is by example. most of us (including me) are too lazy to grab them on the way out.

cheers to 7-11 for joining up here ...or at least pretending to be interested... they give out plastic bags for everything... stick of gum? plastic bag. one honey bun? plastic bag...

[damian5000]

have you seen what happens when you try to change things by 180? most people rebel ... especially the thai who are so set in their ways... try to cut by 50% and THAT's when it certainly would fail... introduce the idea slowly is the only way to change the general public...

[shawndoc]

I try to do my part to help the environment. I went out and bought one of those reusable canvas bags so I could use that instead of the provided plastic bags.

I found while the bag did a good job holding the ice and straw, the Coke just poured right out of the bottom.

[McHow2]

I bought a cloth bag with my small amount of groceries here at Big C.... they put it in a plastic bag!!!!! So much for the Save the Earth slogan on the bag!!!!!!!!!! A Thai friend told me that it is very bad mannered to send someone off with things NOT in a bag and that other vendors will think you're not polite as they see your customers leaving with things in hand...

This is yet another part of Thai culture that will take generation to change!

I believe most of the Thai people are quite poor. A plastic bag is more valuable to them. For us it is just something to throw away. We do not see it as impolite or stingy to not present one to the buyer.

Maybe if you can collect enough of them it is possible to sell them to some nak recycle plastic guy?

I wonder how long plastic bags have been here. Maybe they are still kind of a cool, new novelty for older people. At some point in the relative, recent past they may have been seen as a special treat that you received with a purchase. Does any one know about this?

Should the seller make a judgment on every individual buyer and determine if they are the kind of person that will be steamed or hurt if they do not get a bag for their investment?

I suspect the cultural behaviors we see around the plastic bags are not a product of poor reasoning. It may be the product of a different value system than ours.

Earth to Bearhawk07 - Please come back down here.... Where have you been the last 50 years?

[piewarmer]

I buy a pizza and get a plastic bag full of sauces I don't need.

Buy a filet-of-fish at Macca's. the throw in an assortment of sauces too.

Who would put Ketchup on a fish burger anyway?

[Thanh-BKK]

Who would put Ketchup on a fish burger anyway?

Americans

If you buy McDonalds often you could collect the ketchups and when you have a bunch, empty them into an empty ketchup bottle... that's what i did. At my office was at least one person per day who ordered McDonalds and after some time we had a whole kitchen drawer full of ketchups. One day when i ran out of the stuff at home i brought the empty bottle in, sorted the ketchups by expiry date and what was still good for over a month came into said bottle. Voila - one free bottle of ketchup.

Same with Pizza Company, they even supply genuine Heinz ketchup

Kind regards......

Thanh

[elektrified]

Start charging for plastic bags. Problem solved.

I don't have a problem with that at all. I lived in Prague for a few years and many shops didn't even have plastic bags to offer customers. The ones that did charged an arm and a leg to buy one. Everyone just carried a large folded up shopping bag with them in their pocket, backpack or purse. It was part of daily life. One bag would would last months before it wore out. Guess what? There were no plastic bags littering the streets and polluting the environment. All you have to do is eliminate them from the shops and people will adapt. It's crazy how much plastic is wasted here.

[Aromaz]

Plastic bags became an item of shame in South Africa a number of years ago.

I think since late 1990's. In shops you can buy a plsatic bag to cary things,

but everybody are 'conditioned' to rather bring their own. Also very little

plastic bottles for drinks. Besides, a strong culture of recycle took life there;

More readilly available are paper bags from recycled material.

Even in Thailand where poor people can make something like 200 to 500

bt per day by just picking up plastic bottles and drinks cans.

The other day I even saw a farang on Pattaya beach scavanging in a bin for

cans and bottles. Another known Thai face on the beach told me sometimes

he can collect as much as 500bt in a singel day. Only 1,000 cans!

Personally: My full support to get rid of plastic bags - completely.

Edited April 24, 2009 by Aromaz

[Scott]

The most remedial effort to economize on plastic bags would probably see a 50% decrease.

[ardsong]

I see two times already the comment that Macro does not provide plastic bags, well sorry in Macro Phrae it's all plastic bags like elsewhere. Macro might have different policies in different cities, but I would support shopping with your own bags. but I sure would also support the abilitiy of buying a plastic bag if you's short on yours. quality should than however be better such that this bought bags will last for lets say 25 shoppings.

[phaethon]

What drives me potty are the little tabs of thin plastic that come off Tesco bags. They're just excess plastic from the manufacturing process, but they detach easily and are buggers to sweep or pick up as they are so thin and light that they just do their own thing.

[webfact]

Wasn't this exaggerated use of plastic bag not quite common in Japan as well? Almost similar use as in LOS?

How did Japan actually solve the problem? Or is it still like it was back in 2005 when you got a plastic bag for everything

you purchased? Everything was wrapped in plastic.

Plastic bags have a great tradition in Japanese culture as well...

[brianb1944]

As we walk to our local Rimping, we I get the heavy stuff, spouse gets light. been doing it for 2 years and never a problem re take 2 backpacks,plastic.

[brianb1944]

As we walk to our local Rimping, we I get the heavy stuff, spouse gets light. been doing it for 2 years and never a problem re take 2 backpacks,plastic.

thats not what I typed We use backpacks and staff at Rimping/Tops never have a problem with us packing ourselves

[witsawakorn]

Start charging for plastic bags. Problem solved.

I agree with that. I often buy one or two small items in 7/11 or local minimart. They rush to plastic bag it, and I always say (in my broken Thai) mee plastic paw uban, krap. Don't know if my bad Thai, but they look at me as if I'm mad to not accept a plastic bag .... sigh sigh ...

I just say mai ao plastic krap. It seems to work. Keeps it simple

[Roadman]

Plastic bags should be green...

Edited April 24, 2009 by Roadman

[Koo82]

Tescos are mad for plastic bags - I occasionally try to talk them out of bagging items, usually get a blank stare and a bag anyway.

The small Tesco near our area had signage in Thai at every cashier counter to ask us to save plastic bags and use reusable bags, but they still give out bags generously. It takes time for people to get used to it. I hope in a few years they will start charging for bags.