Was at Bang Saray this morning (in the rain ) and the beach was indeed much cleaner than it was the other day. Still a fair amount of floating polystyrene and other plastic in the sea though.

In fact if I feel like going to pattaya in the future....I will take my rubbish bin and empty it into my bathtub and have a play around....

Poop Trucks of Dubai. Think Thailand lacked planning? Hope this link opens for you.

http://www.boreme.co...mEQrhmipEWjE.99

My god, don't give the Thais any ideas!

All those ships at Laemchabang are dumping their trash overboard as well.

In European waters ships are required to have holding tanks for sewage if they don't have a sewage treatment plant fitted, and many ships incinerate their trash. Not an ideal solution but better than throwing it into the ocean as we used to do. I guess it will take time for these regulations to filter through to this part of the world.

The MARPOL laws are global, not just European. Unfortunately, there's always badly managed vessels that will dump stuff regardless and not just third-world boats in third-world waters either.

MARPOL may be global and prohibit the dumping of ANY plastic ANYWARE at sea. 97.18% of the world fleet hava signed this agrement. This is pretty much all countries in the world, except, you guessed it THAILAND, as they don't seem to care.

MARPOL covers:

• Annex I - Oil
  
• Annex II - Noxious Liquid Substances carried in Bulk
  
• Annex III - Harmful Substances carried in Packaged Form
  
• Annex IV - Sewage
  
• Annex V - Garbage
  
• Annex VI - Air Pollution
  

Thailand have signed MARPOL but have opted out of Annex III, IV and V

A non-Thai flagged MARPOL-compliant vessel doesn't suddenly 'opt-out' of full compliance when it enters Thai waters though. Granted the Thai (and Malay and Cambodian and Vietnamese) commercial fishing fleets are a law unto themselves in the Gulf of Thailand. I had a contractor's HSE man insist on chemical toilets being fitted to over 25 Rayong fishing boats that my client had chartered for marine survey support. This was done more in the interests of safety rather than pollution as they thought that hanging your arse out the back of a cage suspended over the stern was way too risky. No need for a bum gun at 5 knots either!