Looking at the garbage on the beaches around Ban Chang, Rayong, Mae Pim right now i would say the figures quoted are per day - NOT per year!!

A clean up at Phala beach alone on Saturday gathered far more than two tonnes, this story is waaaay off!!

Perhaps the 50 tons per year of "Thai garbage" are from Thais, with the other 15,000 tons to be blamed on farangs, Burmese, Chinese tourists, Thaksin's family and other scapegoats etc?

.........................."Thaksin's family and other scapegoats etc?".................................

Pity they did not flow into the ocean years ago then perhaps we would have a stable non-military government in power today.

With all the garbage dump into the sea the Thai beautiful beaches will be only history! Garbage washes ashore and tourist see it. How many will tell there friends and send faxes or emails to international news services. If not stopped now Thailand will suffer in all qualities to visit Thailand!

50 tons of styrofoam is a very big volume!

It would be interesting to know how this person came up with the figure of " 300 rare sea creatures per year" that die because of the garbage.

My guess is that the reporter was taking notes as someone was speaking about a threat to a specific species, let's say the number of Hawksbill Turtles, or Dolphins, or Guitar Sharks, or whatnot killed each year, and shorthanded it to "300 rare sea creatures per year".

50 tonnes? Is that it? 20 truck loads?

No; only two trucks like this one

Looking at the garbage on the beaches around Ban Chang, Rayong, Mae Pim right now i would say the figures quoted are per day - NOT per year!!

A clean up at Phala beach alone on Saturday gathered far more than two tonnes, this story is waaaay off!!

Totally agree I looked twice at those figures & thought per day yes !!!

,,,but blowing your nose in public gets you a 2000 baht fine. So, where does the trash come from? It would have anything to do with home and companies boarding rivers would it? No fines for them though.

Do any Thais study Economics 101, in particular the Tragedy of the Commons? maybe they should..

That number is too low. Beaches are filthy.

Garbage is a huge problem here. I throw stuff away as I should but there is so much each day. My gf and I live a normal life and cook about 50% of our food at home. We buy at the outdoor markets and places like Big-C. Each day we take out the garbage and it fills a normal size store bag. It's all plastic, bottles, and paper. We got our dinner tonight at a market to take home. So much plastic it is crazy....

With all the garbage dump into the sea the Thai beautiful beaches will be only history! Garbage washes ashore and tourist see it. How many will tell there friends and send faxes or emails to international news services. If not stopped now Thailand will suffer in all qualities to visit Thailand!

You ever been to Bang Saen beach?

It's absolutely found - a line of trash as far as the eye can see.

Sadly, there is very little stigma associated with littering in this country. You can just dump your crap anywhere.

In the UK - there was a long and persistent keep Britain tidy campaign that helped shame people into properly disposing of trash.

Here, you see people dumping it 50 metres from their own houses.

In any case Thailand is drowning in garbage nationwide their only solution which is none is to burn all the unsorted materials in uncontrolled burning sites - it's about time to look into waste-to-energy technologies suitable for all different sizes of communities.

I think there is one down by Phuket broken down surrounded by garbage. I saw a picture a couple months ago here.

And this is just one place on our planet.

On a Sunday morning on Al Jazeera there is a documentary series being shown about life in the slums of Manila. You should see the amount of garbage floating in the waterways there and 40,000 people are living right in the middle of it.

Then there has been an estimated 300 tonnes per day of contaminated water pouring into the ocean from Fukushima for the past two years.

There is no doubt at all there will be a day of reckoning for humanity down the track.

We old farts will all be dead by then. I hope there is no way to radiate us back to life. I watch the Walking Dead and being a Zombie sucks.

And this is just one place on our planet.

On a Sunday morning on Al Jazeera there is a documentary series being shown about life in the slums of Manila. You should see the amount of garbage floating in the waterways there and 40,000 people are living right in the middle of it.

Then there has been an estimated 300 tonnes per day of contaminated water pouring into the ocean from Fukushima for the past two years.

There is no doubt at all there will be a day of reckoning for humanity down the track.

I don't think Thailand has quite reached the stage shown in these photos. But hey, there's always hope....................

http://www.viralnova.com/worlds-most-polluted-river/

Thailand is not the only place to dump their garbage, look at the 2 pictures I included, and then

think of an Island country that relies on tourism a lot! The big attitude problem they have

is that they think they do not have to be careful of what their garbage does, as well!

Just imagine the tourists surprise when they head for the beach!

What you DON'T see is the coral beneath the surface that is dying. I've been diving in Thailand almost ten years and am brokenhearted to see the decline of an organism that takes CENTURIES to grow back. Coral is one of those critical elements in the food chain. It's like the bees dying in America. If the coral dies, if the bees die, then we die.

When the last tree has been cut down, the last fish caught, the last river poisoned, only then will we realize that one cannot eat money.

We can't eat money? Wow, you have just disappointed a lot of people living in this country.....