Rubbish

[zzap]

I live in an area where there is no garbage collection - we have to deal with it ourselves.

Glass, metal and certain plastic items get recycled, i.e. are bought by traders.

Most other items get burned, the gyus in my village claim the ash is good for the soil and happily accept the double&triple plastic bags you get with almost evry item purchased.

I've wondered for some time, what kind of chemicals, heavy metals etc. get released when household waste is burned?

There is a high death-rate from cancer (closely followed by aids around here), am I getting paranoid in suspecting a link here? I should add that I have the impresssion 'cancer' is used as an easy diagnosis when they don't know what it is or don't want to treat people on the 30 bt scheme.

Further, there are some items left which can't be burned, specially light tubes and piles of batteries kids throw into the garden. I've made a habit of pointing out to everybody who cares to listen, that leaking batteries will poison the soil, but it doesn't make the slightest difference.

Since I intend to stay here, I have offered to buy empty batteries in our village, and intend to 'seal' them into plastic bags and cast them into the concrete foundation of our future house extension. Is this a safe way to dispose of them?

End of rant.

Sorry if I sound a bit stupid and overconcerned.

[GuestHouse]

You are entirely correct.

Burning plastic is a pet peeve of mine, the chemicals released (including, among others, phosgene) are extremely toxic. I make a point of minimizing my use of plastic bags by refusing them when I don’t really need a bag and by using shopping ‘cool bags’ for our main shop.

I also make a point of stating (in Thai) I don’t want a plastic bag because I’m looking after the environment.

Like you say, batteries are significant source of chemical contamination and again we minimize our use of batteries – for example we went back to a wired computer mouse when we realized how the wireless mouse was ‘eating batteries’, we also use rechargeable batteries and not the disposable types.

Another pet peeve is Thais burning stuff that doesn’t need burning. We recently cleared 4 Rai of land, removing overgrown weeds and old trees. I had to stop my Thai workers from burning all the vegetable matter, leaves, grass, small twigs etc.

I’ve saved it and next year will spread it as compost.

[Wes Turner]

its bad here in Samui. Greenpeas are here with their ship Rainbow Warrior to tell everyone to be claen and use the incierator to full capacity becauuse they just put it in the sea or let the wind take care of it. Then they have signs up asking us to KEEP SAMUI CLEAN.

[richb2004]

I also often wonder where the rubbish goes. We don't have much, but when we do we generaly give it to those poor folk scavenging by the road side. I then worry if they are going to discard the non profitable stuff. I wonder if this is why Thais seem to collect so much crap on their drives: because they have no where to get rid of it.

This is just one more thing I took for granted when living in the 'terrible' UK.

[zzap]

Burning plastic is a pet peeve of mine, the chemicals released (including, among others, phosgene) are extremely toxic.

Thanks, so I am not overreacting.

Do you know whether the chemicals all are released into the air, or whether some can be found in the ash, passed on to the nearby fruit-trees etc.?

I also often wonder where the rubbish goes. We don't have much, but when we do we generaly give it to those poor folk scavenging by the road side. I then worry if they are going to discard the non profitable stuff.

I'd think they'll simply dump or burn what they can't sell. Be grateful they take the lot off you.

I wonder if this is why Thais seem to collect so much crap on their drives: because they have no where to get rid of it.

They can sell larger items for scrap value, but rather hang on to stuff, maybe it will come handy in the future, or someone will get round to repair it maybe...

[sierra01]

And they wonder why there's so much fly tipping here.

[h90]

burned plastic bags, burn 100 % clean if hot enough (no black smoke) and burned alone. Other plastics may be very dangerous and long time harmfull (PVC, PTFE......). Also combinations might be very dangerous, I remember tetra pack for milk with aluminium foil/plastic/paper produces very dangerous things. But if burned these things sepperate it is not a problem.

glas is not problem, does not burn does not harm.

batteries are bad.

Sure cancer can be a reason, Aids has different reasons burn the condoms before you use them......

I gave up teaching them anything and most probably is the lao cao worse than burning the things....

I live in an area where there is no garbage collection - we have to deal with it ourselves.

Glass, metal and certain plastic items get recycled, i.e. are bought by traders.

Most other items get burned, the gyus in my village claim the ash is good for the soil and happily accept the double&triple plastic bags you get with almost evry item purchased.

I've wondered for some time, what kind of chemicals, heavy metals etc. get released when household waste is burned?

There is a high death-rate from cancer (closely followed by aids around here), am I getting paranoid in suspecting a link here? I should add that I have the impresssion 'cancer' is used as an easy diagnosis when they don't know what it is or don't want to treat people on the 30 bt scheme.

Further, there are some items left which can't be burned, specially light tubes and piles of batteries kids throw into the garden. I've made a habit of pointing out to everybody who cares to listen, that leaking batteries will poison the soil, but it doesn't make the slightest difference.

Since I intend to stay here, I have offered to buy empty batteries in our village, and intend to 'seal' them into plastic bags and cast them into the concrete foundation of our future house extension. Is this a safe way to dispose of them?

End of rant.

Sorry if I sound a bit stupid and overconcerned.

[chownah]

I mostly agree with h90 on the plastic burning except that just because there is not black smoke does not mean that you are safe. I don't have a reference for this but I read many many years ago that the most carcinogenic substances known to man are found in the combustion products of plastics. I'm not sure if this is still true or not....maybe chemists have found even worse things....I don't know. Industrial grade incineration when absolutely optimal conditions are met will burn plastics 100% and not create carcinogens...but...even these processes with their computerized control systems can not maintain absolutely optimal conditions throughout the entire burn cycle which is why these systems do pose environmental problems.

My advice is to not burn plastics in any way. This is because you will be creating some toxic chemicals no matter how thoroughly you burn them...and...perhaps more importantly when someone else sees you burning plastic then they will think it is ok to do it too and they will most likely not burn it well...most likely they will mix it with yard waste and it will fume and smolder releasing large quantities of toxic waste that will blow on the breeze......if you can smell plastic burning then you are being poisoned...and even if you can't smell it you can still be being poisoned.

Burning plastic is a very serious matter....don't do it and complain if you see others doing it.

[zzap]

I am the only one where I live who thinks there might be something not quite right about burning the stuff...

And what is the alternative to burning it? Dump it in the wilderness, make a pit on my land? Do you have any idea, just how much stuff I collect every week just from the stream that runs across our land?

Anyway, burn things seperately, sounds like a useful compromise. Hadn't thought of this before.