900,000 Potential Polluters Must Comply With Waste-Management Law: Thailand

[webfact]

Big businesses must comply with waste-management law

The Nation

BANGKOK: -- The Pollution Control Department has informed about 900,000 potential polluters, such as shopping complexes, large hotels, hospitals and other businesses, that they need to start compiling their wastewater treatment records and report the results to relevant authorities every month.

This mandatory measures will be enforced from August 2, PCD's director general Wichien Jungrungruang said yesterday.

He was speaking at a meeting held with factory owners, management officials from industrial estates and residential buildings, hotels, schools, petrol stations and owners of large pig farms at the PCD headquarters.

This extra measure, which complies with the 1992 Environmental Quality Protection and Prevention Act's Article 80, requires all polluters to file a report on their wastewater treatment and maintenance with the PCD every month.

"We have learned that more than 890,512 businesses as factories, industrial estates, residential buildings, hotels, large schools, petrol stations and large pig farms need to comply with the law," he said.

PCD also found that more than 1,000 state and private hospitals with at least 30 beds nationwide did not run a wastemanagement system. Wichien said his agency would speak to the Public Health Ministry and ask that it instruct these hospitals to start operating their wastemanagement system.

"We will conduct random checks on hospitals, buildings and factories to see if they are complying with the law," he added.

Though the PCD does not have the authority to close down businesses that do not comply with the law, it can file a complaint with the Department of Industrial Works, which can then take the required steps.

-- The Nation 2012-07-28

[cloudhopper]

So a law that has been on the books for 20 years will be enforced starting Aug 2. Sure it will.

[dcutman]

So a law that has been on the books for 20 years will be enforced starting Aug 2. Sure it will.

Actually I think it is an added measure to compliment the 1992 law. However, this add on will more than likely be treated as the 1992 law, as most other laws here,

Ignored and unenforced.

Edited July 28, 2012 by dcutman

[jaltsc]

And who is the Pollution Control Department going to inform about burning and polluting the air with smoke during early spring? Maybe they will cut down on water pollution, but that will not cut down on overall preventable pollution and make the living environment any less dangerous.

[Thai at Heart]

I think i will invest in a water testing lab.

[davehowden]

[jerrysteve]

Big Polluters Must Comply With Waste-Management Law:

In a Pigs Arse!!!!!! defined in this contextas the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on.

[Thai at Heart]

Big Polluters Must Comply With Waste-Management Law:

In a Pigs Arse!!!!!! defined in this contextas the fleshy part of the human body that you sit on.

Well it isn't quite as bad as you say. Big shopping centers and hotels have had to comply in bangkok and pattaya for the last year or so.

Good news if they expand this. Of course how they make their wws better is another issue.

[WhizBang]

I think i will invest in a water testing lab.

I actually own a water (plus air and soil) testing lab back in the USA. 10 years ago I looked into opening a branch here. It didn't take me long to realize that either the lab or I wouldn't last long here, mainly because integrety in the results of my lab is a corner stone of my business.

Or to put it another way, I am not open to corruption to give people the results they want.

[hedonist44]

I think i will invest in a water testing lab.

You would have more customers and make more money in broken down beer bar in Pattaya.

[EarthAlien]

... and what about the millions of other roadside and riverbank dump merchants who see Thailand as one big open air dump yard?

The crux of the problem is in education (or lack of it). Zero social responsibility and zero accountability for offenders (and I dont call petty tea money bribes when caught as "accountability").

[Thai at Heart]

I think i will invest in a water testing lab.

You would have more customers and make more money in broken down beer bar in Pattaya.

You do realise there are thousands doing testing already, just that the geography has now increased massively.

[spidermike007]

Nuggets of gold will start growing on every tree in Thailand before the authorities start paying attention to anything that concerns the environment. Many countries in Sub Saharan Africa have a better environmental record than Thailand, which lags far toward the back of the pack of developing countries, when it comes to ANY REGARD for the environment, the cleanliness of the beaches, the protection of the seas, the restrictions against timber cutting, etc., etc., etc. It is almost the planet's laughingstock, when it comes to these areas. For a goombah official to make a pronouncement like this, has to be the result of egg on the face, from an overseas investigative report of some kind. Will they follow it up? No. Why? No cash to be found in it, and a complete lack of awareness of future benefits, to the land, sea, people, and air.

[ricardofel]

Let's start with the little polluters in every village in Thailand...burning plastics, garbage, throwing trash everywhere, dumping construction debris on highways....it's endless...or maybe the diesel pollution...wake up Thailand!

[culicine]

Forget Laws and enforcement. It seems to me laws in this country are only put into place to allow corruption. No laws = lo tea money to be made.

It's all down to education of the young - show them polluting the environment wrong, disgusting and unhealthy for themselves and others. You won't often find Australians wantonly littering their environment - yes there are big fines but that's not the main reason. It all comes down to education and it will be atleast another generation for things to change significantly here.

[Estrada]

So a law that has been on the books for 20 years will be enforced starting Aug 2. Sure it will.

Actually I think it is an added measure to compliment the 1992 law. However, this add on will more than likely be treated as the 1992 law, as most other laws here,

Ignored and unenforced.

There is no added measure, the law and its required enforcement has not changed. in 1994 automatic samplers/on line analysers were required to be installed to be connected direct to the PCD. The current noises being made by the PCD suggest that the online 24hours surveliance is no longer in operation and that they are going to trust the factory owners to carry out their own analyses and report them to the PCD, which is a joke. The factory owners are not going to report bad results are they? The current posturing is more likely just a reminder to the factory owners to provide the right incentives to the PCD or the PCD will make a visit to the factory and analyse their effluent. This is no different to the protection/ tea money that as to be paid by many businesses such as Pantip Plaza, which ensures that businesses are forewarned of Police raids so that the evidence can be removed prior to the raids.

My question is what happened to the mandatory online pollution monitoring stations at each factory along the Chaophraya? Sounds like the PCD should be shut down and let the Thai Environmental Engineering Association takeover.

[Cardiff1963]

Is the US not the biggest, by far polluter per capita, in the world?

[hhiser]

Is the US not the biggest, by far polluter per capita, in the world?

No, China is.

http://www.thenewecologist.com/2009/10/the-worlds-biggest-polluters/

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/8793269/China-population-to-become-worlds-biggest-polluters.html

http://www.theage.com.au/environment/the-worlds-worst-polluters-20090910-fjdt.html

Edited July 28, 2012 by hhiser

[Payboy]

Though the PCD does not have the authority to close down businesses that do not comply with the law, it can file a complaint with the Department of Industrial Works, which can then take the required steps.

Something tells me the required steps involve tea, but not in a cup.

[brianP]

The poor Thai environs are being hammered at from land ,sea and air indeed. I live on the coast and can't believe that some of the fishermen are essentially shitting on their own dinner tables by the litter and oil/gas cans. People who don't burn trash just toss it. The benefit of living on stilts here is to have a waterway trashcan always available. Lack of understanding,stewardship,etc.is a major reason of civilian polluting, but the corporate industrial reason is always money-profit. If the Thai's had the proper research and information combined with strong pollution and littering laws and a modern Environmental Police agency that enforced them and levied high fines , it could pay for the fractured education system, which in turn could start the Earth friendly awareness and education in the kids who will one day be running things. Every Country has these same polluting pressures mounting as Human species are rapidly multiplying, and the natural world and it's wild species are in a tumultuous downward decline. We need real solutions and FAST.

[scotbeve]

So a law that has been on the books for 20 years will be enforced starting Aug 2. Sure it will.

Yes, thanks to this administration for the concern!

[Thai at Heart]

So a law that has been on the books for 20 years will be enforced starting Aug 2. Sure it will.

Yes, thanks to this administration for the concern!

Well actually someone noticed after 20 years.

In fairness, one up to the current administration

[jaltsc]

Forget Laws and enforcement. It seems to me laws in this country are only put into place to allow corruption. No laws = lo tea money to be made.

It's all down to education of the young - show them polluting the environment wrong, disgusting and unhealthy for themselves and others. You won't often find Australians wantonly littering their environment - yes there are big fines but that's not the main reason. It all comes down to education and it will be atleast another generation for things to change significantly here.

Unfortunately, education of the young on matters of pollution means teaching them that their parents, grandparents, etc. were wrong to pollute the environment. Before they can accept that, there will have to be a shift in the Thai culture, whereby it is OK to criticize their elders' actions. Good luck with that. .

[spidermike007]

Forget Laws and enforcement. It seems to me laws in this country are only put into place to allow corruption. No laws = lo tea money to be made.

It's all down to education of the young - show them polluting the environment wrong, disgusting and unhealthy for themselves and others. You won't often find Australians wantonly littering their environment - yes there are big fines but that's not the main reason. It all comes down to education and it will be atleast another generation for things to change significantly here.

Unfortunately, education of the young on matters of pollution means teaching them that their parents, grandparents, etc. were wrong to pollute the environment. Before they can accept that, there will have to be a shift in the Thai culture, whereby it is OK to criticize their elders' actions. Good luck with that. .

But, we are talking about education on all levels. The environment, world affairs, culture, politics, foreign languages, geography, math, science, etc. It is some of the poorest in the world, in all of those areas. Though Thailand is currently #25 in the world, in terms of GDP, they have an educational system comparable to #125 in the world. Shame on the powers that be. Their lack of priority in this area will be the eventual undoing of all that has beeb accomplished.