Excessive Garbage Left Behind By Tourists A Threat For Koh Samet

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KOH SAMET

Excessive garbage threaten the island

By Janjira Pongrai

The Nation

Published on January 20, 2010

Environmental problems are threatening to leave the once pristine island of Samet in a horrendous mess.

Thanks to booming tourism, the island's four-rai landfill can no longer accommodate the tonnes and tonnes of garbage left behind by the rising number of tourists.

Rayong Governor Sayumporn Limthai said yesterday that not only do the piles of garbage smell bad, it was also contaminating groundwater sources.

He was speaking to the press after inspecting Samet alongside Jatuporn Burutpat, who heads the Department of National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation, over the weekend.

"Even from a helicopter, this pile of garbage is an eyesore," Jatuporn said.

Though Samet is part of Rayong, it falls under the jurisdiction of Jatuporn's department because it is located inside a national park.

Jatuporn is currently reviewing some plans submitted by Rayong authorities, including one about the Rayong Provincial Administrative Organisation's plan to relocate the garbage outside the island.

"The plan should be implemented within one year from now," Jatuporn said. "We need to urgently solve Samet's environmental problems."

He said the main reason for the environmental damage was that there were more visitors to Samet than it could handle.

"We should plan to limit the number of tourists," he said, adding that a study on the matter was being conducted and should be ready by the end of this year.

Meanwhile, Sayumporn said the many unregulated buildings going up to serve the rising number of tourists further damaged Samet's environment.

"We have to ensure that new facilities do not hurt the environment. Samet's selling point should be its natural beauty," the governor said.

Relevant authorities are planning to launch various projects to revamp Samet and some facilities will be allowed, provided they are well regulated. For instance, one of the projects is to improve the 14-kilometre road around the island, which should cost less than Bt61 million and be completed within a year.

In addition, relevant authorities will improve the piers on the island to ensure everyone's safety.

"We will not drive out the more than 100 operators that rent out deck chairs, but we will make them stay near the beach, not right on it," Sayumporn said.

-- The Nation 2010-01-20

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[Moruya]

That's right, blame the farangs.

[ThailandTommy]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Of course if they were 'quality big spending tourists' it would solve the problem?

[LaoPo]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Ditto; I've seen this dump built many years ago in the middle of the island.

How on earth can any "brainer" from Rayong give an order to built a garbage dump in the middle of a NATIONAL PARK for heaven's sake and now blame the tourists?

They should have organized a garbage collecting system and deport the garbage AWAY from the island again -on a daily basis with boats- since is was taken there in the first place, ordered by the resorts and hotels!

Take the rubbish away you brought yourselves Rayong authorities, resorts and hotels ! Clean up your own sh_t

What another nonsense article.

LaoPo

Edited January 20, 2010 by LaoPo

[palm]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Where in the article does it mention foreigners?

Thais visiting Koh Samet for breaks are tourists too.

[RickBradford]

Koh Samet, I believe, means Island of Plastic Bags.

The island is covered with them, and nobody can be bothered to pick them up.

I think this is because there are no 'locals' on Koh Samet -- it was effectively uninhabited until it was opened up for tourism in the 1990s. Thus nobody has a real stake in protecting the island, as they are all mainlanders after a fast buck.

It is hugely overpriced and impressively filthy. Tourism at its very worst. Oh, and don't forget the 200Bt you have to pay to enter this pristine park environment full of farang pubs and Thai karaoke bars.

[moetownblues]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Where in the article does it mention foreigners?

Thais visiting Koh Samet for breaks are tourists too.

It's time for a crackdown on tourism in Thailand that will fix the problem.

Thais don't use rubbish dumps they just throw it in the streets.

[Credo]

It's a national park, but it is full of resorts. Years ago, they were talking about the problem of these resorts, which aren't supposed to be there. They did nothing. Now, the problem is garbage--well actually, not again, it was a problem a while back.

[Thailand]

Simply ban tourists and light a big bonfire in the middle of the national park, it will solve the problem and simply be put down to the annual burn-just a couple of weeks away for us in the north.

[Thai at Heart]

How did any of this occur inside a National Park? We won't wonder how anything got built there at all will we.

Sometimes all you can do is shrug your shoulders and say "TIT".

[givenall]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Yeah everything has a price. Farang come and spend their money but blame them for what is the bad environmental management. I think the Mayer should be fired or forced to live near the dump

[slapout]

Sounds more like the National Park officials were projecting income but forgetting long range plans for environmental concerns. Blame the tourists instead of admitting that any officials dropped the ball in another grand project. The endless campaign of crackdowns, better education, elimination of corruption, and on and on will be greatly assisted in achieving a solution to the mountain of problems, when people start with "I/we made a mistake"

[RickBradford]

I think the Mayer should be fired or forced to live near the dump

The whole place is a dump.

[Teddy3943]

That's right, blame the farangs.

A few hundred meters behind my house is a small road, never discovered by farangs. Along both sides of this road there is a long stretched garbage ribbon with the most poisonous materials you can think of. If my wife and me want to dispose something which doesn't fit in the garbage bin, we call the boys of the garbage car, give them a few hundred Baht and they take our big garbage away. The Thais just throw it alongside the road. They make Thailand to become one big garbage dump...

[ferd54]

It's a national park, but it is full of resorts. Years ago, they were talking about the problem of these resorts, which aren't supposed to be there. They did nothing. Now, the problem is garbage--well actually, not again, it was a problem a while back.

Yes, this exact newspaper story could have easily been one I read 15 years ago -- same problem, same solutions needed and nothing done.

BTW, foreigners are far from the majority of tourists on Samet, and the news story never says they are.

[LuckyLew]

No farangs on island = no jobs for Thais

One or the other

[brahmburgers]

It's a microcosm for Thailand as a whole and furthermore, anywhere on the planet where people pack together. I think 'homo sapiens' means 'trash monkey.' Perhaps it's just part of the transition to a new species called, 'homo garbagium" - the hominid which can tolerate trash everywhere.

Paper/plastic trash strewn about is the trash you can see. What about the immense amount of trash that's less visible? For example, the leaky, too-small or non-existant septic systems that allow untreated toilet waste to leach into land and water. What about the toxic chemicals which are everywhere - and also leak in to land, water, air. Incidentally, the big plastic septic tanks which are commonly used here (all the same design) - are not good. As with many Thai products, it will work ok initially, but it won't work well for the long term. I've looked closely at the design and it simply doesn't have much space at all for solid wastes. I would grade it D-

The OP talks about the 'eyesore' of the overflowing dump site. It's like a clinic diagnosing a patient who has multiple internal organ failures, but seeing just a rash on the skin, concluding that the patient has a skin problem, and that's it.

I'm also getting in to the habit of, when I purchase something which has plastic/cardboard, I unwrap the item at the check-out stand, and leave the packaging there. The vendors' unhappiness with having to process the packing materials might get a message through to manufacturers, 99% of whom over-package their products.

If the mayor and his fellow big shots could think outside the box, they might come up with other ideas (beyond just shipping excess garbage off the island). They might even put some bans on products which are not environmentally friendly, or are toxic, over-packaged or unnecessary.

A few hundred meters behind my house is a small road, never discovered by farangs. Along both sides of this road there is a long stretched garbage ribbon with the most poisonous materials you can think of. If my wife and me want to dispose something which doesn't fit in the garbage bin, we call the boys of the garbage car, give them a few hundred Baht and they take our big garbage away. The Thais just throw it alongside the road. They make Thailand to become one big garbage dump...

Same in many rural roads in my area of northern Thailand. Alongside little roads which jut off from main roads are endless piles of garbage settled in amongst weeds. When will we see some well-publicized busts for dumpers? I suggest Bt.2,000 fine first offense. 2nd offense, Bt.10,000 and vehicle confiscated for 6 months. All accomplices fined also, and all caught in the act compelled to put in 100 hours of roadside trash pick-up duty.

Edited January 20, 2010 by brahmburgers

[Damaz6052]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Where does it mention Farangs?

[rkidlad]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Where does it mention Farangs?

The first time I was on Khoa samed I was walking on the beach and saw an empty 5 litre oil can lying there.

I said to the bird I was with 'That's awful! Who would just throw rubbish like this on the beach!' (It was a rhetorical question and I wasn't implying any particular race of people had done it)

To which she replied 'Yea, many farangs just throw their rubbish on the beach'

A few minutes later I thought 'Why would 'any' tourist here be buying oil?' But just kept that to myself.

[Basil B]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Yeah everything has a price. Farang come and spend their money but blame them for what is the bad environmental management. I think the Mayer should be fired or forced to live near the dump

Stand outside town hall with a banner that reads "Dump the Mayor"...

[starkey_rich]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Where in the article does it mention foreigners?

Thais visiting Koh Samet for breaks are tourists too.

True and have you seen the rubbish they leave behind everywhere they go.You can always tell when it's the weekend at my local beach (Nai Harn Phuket)by the amout of plastic bags,polystyrene trays,beer bottles.They just get up walk away and leave everything.

[ScubaBuddha]

That's right, blame the farangs.

Where in the article does it mention foreigners?

Thais visiting Koh Samet for breaks are tourists too.

While using the term "tourists" is technically correct, of course we all think "farang", but of course "tourists" include Thais, not just farang, of which Koh Samet has many of both. According to wikitravel anyway:

"It's a popular tourist destination for Thais as well as foreigners for its proximity to Bangkok."

And of course there is also a certain amount of garage produced by the locals. The heading certainly conjures up images of farang walking down a prestine beach throwing garbage every which way. Which is the crux of the headline, to somehow blame the tourists for the problem. Of course the entire problem is 100% the lack of planning by Thai authorities.

I have seen this kind of misleading sensationalist headlines here before. It seems ThaVisa is not immune to having poor media ethics. Hey, at least it got all of us to click on it, which is the goal.

[mojaco]

Are there many convenient waste recepticals?

[KKvampire]

Are there many convenient waste recepticals?

Thats the whole point in ALL of Thailand . WHEREVER you are there so few Waste bins, and any there are are unofficial ones put by someone near their shop. The Politicians, Mayors or whoever are pathetic and incapable of running a barbecue stall let alone a city or island. But it's the same old story,the Thai People accept all this

Edited January 20, 2010 by KKvampire

[harleyclarkey]

National Park ("once pristine").....tourist overload.....over developed.....festering 4 rai open dump in the middle????

Yep.....sure sounds like Thailand.

An easy solution is to recycle, compost "brown" rubbish and burn the small balance. With labour so being cheap, this cost divided between all of the resorts would be a small pittance. But then there doesn't seem to be any graft and tea money in this scheme. Best to truck it to a pier, crane it on barges and then truck it to another festering dump on the mainland.

[richieudon]

I think the Mayer should be fired or forced to live near the dump

The whole place is a dump.

And a really overpriced dump at that!

Even the 7-11 is more expensive...

[Jimjim1968]

Koh Le Pei down South is another eyesore. It used to be wonderful, but last time I went there the place was covered in plastic water bottles. They were busy digging out a hillside and constructing a new resort site. One was forced to pay an addition 50 B to get from the boat from the mainland and ride in a longtail boat about 50 yards to the beach. Everywhere was garbage and another island struck off my list. So sad.

[brahmburgers]

30 years ago I hitched a ride with some locals in Mexico - young punks who were drinking hard. When the bottle was empty, the guy told me to toss it out the window of the moving car. I said no. He smiled and said 'por la madre' (for the mother), then grabbed it and tossed out himself. That's the excuse of primitive people everywhere, they think that mother nature can take care of all the garbage. Perhaps that was partly true when non-recyclable garbage first showed up, but the avalanche of garbage (much of it toxic) nowadays is sickening. Mexicans, Thais, Guianeans, Togolese .....all the people who, until recently were living in grass huts with dirt floors, eating off banana leaves (a good thing, btw), need to wake up to modern realities - that mother nature can not take care of today's mountains of garbage.

Has there ever been a campaign in Thailand like America's (from the 1950's) "Don't Be A Litterbug" ? Maybe that can be part of the excuses for Thais tossing trash everywhere, ....they just never had the education campaign to tell them it's wrong.

[ratcatcher]

30 years ago I hitched a ride with some locals in Mexico - young punks who were drinking hard. When the bottle was empty, the guy told me to toss it out the window of the moving car. I said no. He smiled and said 'por la madre' (for the mother), then grabbed it and tossed out himself. That's the excuse of primitive people everywhere, they think that mother nature can take care of all the garbage. Perhaps that was partly true when non-recyclable garbage first showed up, but the avalanche of garbage (much of it toxic) nowadays is sickening. Mexicans, Thais, Guianeans, Togolese .....all the people who, until recently were living in grass huts with dirt floors, eating off banana leaves (a good thing, btw), need to wake up to modern realities - that mother nature can not take care of today's mountains of garbage.

Has there ever been a campaign in Thailand like America's (from the 1950's) "Don't Be A Litterbug" ? Maybe that can be part of the excuses for Thais tossing trash everywhere, ....they just never had the education campaign to tell them it's wrong.

It was the last line of brahmburger's post that really got my attention. Thais have always figured it's someone else's problem.

When we go upcountry to my wife's small house on the bank of the Nan river, we use black plastic garbage bags in the house and I've told her when it's full, put it outside in the container and when we go into town we'll drop it off at one of the garbage bins in the village. Mysteriously the bag vanishes within hours and I know where it goes., along with everything else............ in the river, floats merrily away on it's journey down to Nakhon Sawan where there is a dam.It is then dealt with. Out of sight-out of mind.

[Gary A]

They need to transfer some Bangkok police down there. Bangkok police can easily spot a farang dropping a cigarette butt from a hundred meters away. The fine is 2,000 baht. I am not saying it is proper to throw cigarette butts on the ground, BUT surely plastic bags are a much worse form of littering. There are plastic bags littering every town and village in Thailand.