Waste Handling In Isaan

[mackes]

Anyone found an acceptable solution for trash handling in the outbacks of Isaan? (outside Korat)

The common practice is to burn which I consider not a good solution.

I can use a compost but there will always be non recycable trash in addition.

[Thaddeus]

From the title I first though you were needing advice on a healthy diet or a hobby while your wife is in the salon.

But, as it's about trash, do you not have a local recycling place, they are not rare, I have three within a five klick drive, and the trash motosai who passes at least once a week, all of which will quite happily buy it from you.

(and I know it was just a typo, we all do it)

Edited April 4, 2012 by Thaddeus

[KhunBENQ]

As Thaddeus writes: do waste separation (glass, metals, PET plastics, carton, paper).

The trash man will buy it for a few Baht (don't know the exact rates by heart, some by the piece, some by kilo).

I have no idea why my Thai neigbours don't produce compost (?).

They still do an awful lot of burning.

We have a garbage collection in our village/Tessaban which carries the rest to a landfill.

[isanbirder]

Get clued up on your local recycling system; probably some of the poorer villagers will collect it from you. Bottles, plastic, cartons are easy to recycle; paper less so.

Otherwise you're stuck with burning or burying, or a combination of the two (unless you are lucky enough to have a waste collection service; most villages don't).

[mackes]

Thanks for replies. Yes there was a typo in the Title, maybe moderator can help me change (for searching)

A combination sounds OK with compost (or burying), selling to garbage collector and try to find a waste place for the rest.

Have not seen one or heard of one yet, have to look around.

[SantiSuk]

As Thaddeus writes: do waste separation (glass, metals, PET plastics, carton, paper).

The trash man will buy it for a few Baht (don't know the exact rates by heart, some by the piece, some by kilo).

I have no idea why my Thai neigbours don't produce compost (?).

They still do an awful lot of burning.

We have a garbage collection in our village/Tessaban which carries the rest to a landfill.

Most Thais don't overbuy food and what compostable waste there is goes to the dog or to the pigs!

Most composting falangs probably wouldn't bother with compost heaps back home in falangland if they dodn't have big gardens producing much of the waste materials. Rural Thais tend not to garden either.

We had the usual 8 foot hole dug and a concrete ring installed when we moved into our new house 3 years ago. Everything organic that can't be fed to the dog or my FIL's pigs goes in there. It looks to be only about one foot less deep than when it started. I sell plastic, glass and cardboard packaging. I store other burnable material and have a small bonfire (on a grid on top of the rubbbish hole) once a month; can't think that is wrecking the planet. Metals and other stuff like batteries I take to the nearest town that has a service - where they conveniently leave some unassigned bins lying around! I take printer cartrideges back to the UK and send them off in those little packets you can get - ridiculous really, I'm certain that the carbon footprint of me doing that is bigger than it would be for just sticking them on the bonfire in Thailand (but once you've got the good recycling neighbour habit it's difficult to kick it!

Edited April 4, 2012 by SantiSuk

[chuckd]

I place all my trash in boxes and gift wrap them. Then I drive to the Makro store in Udorn and leave them in the back seat with the doors unlocked.

When I return from shopping, all the boxes have miraculously disappeared.

[cooked]

I place all my trash in boxes and gift wrap them. Then I drive to the Makro store in Udorn and leave them in the back seat with the doors unlocked.

When I return from shopping, all the boxes have miraculously disappeared.

as we have a pickup I guess we would have it even easier. However the problem is still there, just not in your backyard.

In our village (near Buriram) we have a problem with plastic, floating around everywhere, being burnt across the road from the clinic. If I buy ice creams for the local kids they just dump the packing where ever they are standing. I once spent an hour or two cleaning stuff in front of our house, a day later it looked the same. I may pay somebody to clean up but it's a losing battle...

I got Tshirts printed 'I don^t like plastic' in reference to the fact that you can't buy anything without being stuck into a plastic bag even if it is already in a plastic bag, if you have two items they will be put into a third plastic bag... people are paid to do this..

[isanbirder]

I place all my trash in boxes and gift wrap them. Then I drive to the Makro store in Udorn and leave them in the back seat with the doors unlocked.

When I return from shopping, all the boxes have miraculously disappeared.

That's a beauty, Chuck! But if you don't have quite such a nasty mind, take a sack of rubbish in the back of your pickup, and put it into one of the rubbish bins in the nearest town. Buriram will do, or Krasang. Just make sure none of the residents see you doing it.

[RussellBellagrego]

We arrive as new born westerners and quickly set out to impose our view of proper etiquette to our

Thai brethren. Appalled, would be a mild response to this " Filthy Place" The @#$ dam_n flying plastic garbage at the top of the list followed by the burning of carcinogens. Welcome to Thailand. After seven years of picking up other peoples trash, I still find myself here. Why, well, you know the answer, we all do. Acceptance of less than a perfect Nirvana is the bottom line. Take a line from AA and accept that which you cannot change. Do your best to keep your little piece of Heaven spotless and F the rest of the village. Beat your Thai children regularly for those plastic transgressions or use the other method so common to Thailand. Bribery.

[zzaa09]

The missus and myself have always attempted to keep our little world under control regarding rubbish and recycling.

As it goes, we've yet to establish any such "community" system of recycling, with the exception of those odd entrepreneurs that have laregely made a living going around periodically from village to village, amphoe to amphoe....we just collect any metals and glasses in one area. They come around and collect it in time.

We're farmers and gardeners....we instinctively create mulch of every sort all of our bio waste.

We're also a bit odd in the concern that we don't go out of our way to have/take plastic in our everyday doings......we avoid the common ideals of having plastic in our lives.

[zzaa09]

We arrive as new born westerners and quickly set out to impose our view of proper etiquette to our

Thai brethren.

Yes....proper and siwilai. Goes without saying.

BTW, some of us aren't "new born".

[transam]

I place all my trash in boxes and gift wrap them. Then I drive to the Makro store in Udorn and leave them in the back seat with the doors unlocked.

When I return from shopping, all the boxes have miraculously disappeared.

You don't give the mrs enough allowance.

[zzaa09]

A backward minset of mindless and needless consumption bestowed on the Thai population.

[isanbirder]

A backward minset of mindless and needless consumption bestowed on the Thai population.

Mindset, zzaa, but I guess that's just a typo.

Yes, I agree with you, though the Thais didn't have to accept what the West bestowed on them. The blame is not all on one side.

[cooked]

-we bestowed on them? come on. A rural population (John Lennon: " you're all plucking pheasants as far as I can see...") has no concept of environmental issues if not educated. For centuries they have been throwing their organic stuff out letting it decompose naturally, no prob. usually. I have problems with the fact that these guys claim to be proud of Thailand and then take every opportunity of junking it (not just plastic, resorts in National Parks, flooding National Parks, rant rant..).

Just to round things off, if I arrive at a remote Swiss mountain top and find it strewn with chip packets and Cola tins, I assume that English tourists have passed through recently. This was a family joke, until I actually witnessed it being done and met with mild insults when I suggested they take it back with them.

[isanbirder]

On the contrary, most rural populations have a pretty good idea of how to treat their environment. In rural Thailand twenty years ago, possessions were repaired until they fell apart; nothing was thrown away if any last bit of use could be squeezed out of it. This has changed in those twenty years to a throwaway society... and their background simply has not prepared them to deal with the resultant rubbish. Much of the rubbish you see at tourist areas is left by urban Thais, who are that much farther away from the recycling habits of the countryside.

[zzaa09]

A backward minset of mindless and needless consumption bestowed on the Thai population.

Yes, I agree with you, though the Thais didn't have to accept what the West bestowed on them. The blame is not all on one side.

Actually, it is one sided. It's very akin to overwhelming social colonialism.

[cooked]

All of the rubbish that is strewn around near here is strewn by the local, very rural population. No tourists, very few urban Thais. Forget the noble savage stuff, we're all human and take the easiest path.

I won't go into the subject of education in Thailand but it doesn't seem to be there to stimulate intellectual curiosity.

[mackes]

This massive plastic culture really annoy me. Around house I bought a trashcans for every 5 meter and there are a combination of bribes and threat to give the kids new habits. But it's not just the kids, it's a grown in culture to just let packaging go when used.

Guess it's one of the downsides...

[isanbirder]

All of the rubbish that is strewn around near here is strewn by the local, very rural population. No tourists, very few urban Thais. Forget the noble savage stuff, we're all human and take the easiest path.

I won't go into the subject of education in Thailand but it doesn't seem to be there to stimulate intellectual curiosity.

Please re-read my post. I made a clear distinction between rural rubbish and tourist area rubbish.

For zzaa, of course, everything is the fault of those dreadful Westerners; a lot is, but not everything!

[bergen]

-we bestowed on them? come on. A rural population (John Lennon: " you're all plucking pheasants as far as I can see...") has no concept of environmental issues if not educated. For centuries they have been throwing their organic stuff out letting it decompose naturally, no prob. usually. I have problems with the fact that these guys claim to be proud of Thailand and then take every opportunity of junking it (not just plastic, resorts in National Parks, flooding National Parks, rant rant..).

Just to round things off, if I arrive at a remote Swiss mountain top and find it strewn with chip packets and Cola tins, I assume that English tourists have passed through recently. This was a family joke, until I actually witnessed it being done and met with mild insults when I suggested they take it back with them.

Which top was it?

[cooked]

Schwab

-we bestowed on them? come on. A rural population (John Lennon: " you're all plucking pheasants as far as I can see...") has no concept of environmental issues if not educated. For centuries they have been throwing their organic stuff out letting it decompose naturally, no prob. usually. I have problems with the fact that these guys claim to be proud of Thailand and then take every opportunity of junking it (not just plastic, resorts in National Parks, flooding National Parks, rant rant..).

Just to round things off, if I arrive at a remote Swiss mountain top and find it strewn with chip packets and Cola tins, I assume that English tourists have passed through recently. This was a family joke, until I actually witnessed it being done and met with mild insults when I suggested they take it back with them.

Which top was it?

Schwabhorn

[cooked]

All of the rubbish that is strewn around near here is strewn by the local, very rural population. No tourists, very few urban Thais. Forget the noble savage stuff, we're all human and take the easiest path.

I won't go into the subject of education in Thailand but it doesn't seem to be there to stimulate intellectual curiosity.

Please re-read my post. I made a clear distinction between rural rubbish and tourist area rubbish.

For zzaa, of course, everything is the fault of those dreadful Westerners; a lot is, but not everything!

yes, sir. I thought we were talking about Thailand in general and Isaan in particular, and not just your comment