PM Prayut promotes civil-state hazardous waste separation project

[webfact]

PM promotes civil-state hazardous waste separation project

 

 

BANGKOK, 18 July 2017 (NNT) - The Prime Minister has promoted the civil-state hazardous waste separation project, stressing the need for cooperation from all parties in solving waste management. 

Prior to the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha observed an activity to promote the removal of hazardous waste from local communities. Five trash bins for different types of waste have been placed at convenient stores, tall buildings, housing estates and leading department stores throughout the country. 

Hazardous waste consists of batteries, mobile phones, fluorescent lamps and spray cans, which must be separated from other kinds of trash. In 2016, the amount of hazardous waste in Thailand climbed 2.57% from last year to reach 606,318 tons. 

The Prime Minister said that effective waste management requires cooperation from all parties and not just the government sector. He stressed the importance of raising awareness to reduce and sort garbage, in order to facilitate waste management. Entrepreneurs have been sought to develop promotional measures, such as offering discounts if customers use cloth bags. This would reduce the use of plastic bags and the amount of waste in general.

 

-- nnt 2017-07-18

[Dobredin Ghusputin]

4 minutes ago, webfact said:

the amount of waste in general

 

That last dig was totally unnecessary.

[Cadbury]

Does anyone seriously believe the waste will be separated. At best people will dump anything and everything into the bin closest to them and leave the separation to someone else.

At worst they will dump it 100 metres or more from the bins or throw it on the side of the road closest to the bins.

How on earth did they work out that hazardous waste in 2016 was exactly 606,318 tons? The mind boggles!

Edited July 18, 2017 by Cadbury

[colinneil]

Another brain dead idea, they expect Thais to sort recycling items into separate bins.

Hells teeth you can have a bin on the street, and they will throw the rubbish down next to it, not in it.

[observer90210]

In Europe people were trashing their toxic waste everywhere until municipalities started to spread recycling bins all over....put recycling bins close within neighbourhoods....... and if people are indisciplined add more within any citizen's reach and the job may have better chances of success...

 

put the bins far from reach and the waste will continue to be disposed down the river or the drain....human nature!

[Chris Lawrence]

This could be a very big contract.

 

BRIBERY and corruption, systematic tax evasion and currying political favour helped build the cardboard empire of billionaire Richard Pratt. He died in 2009. Net worth abt 5.2 billion dollars (They were worth more than US $ back then).

 

So, who will eventually win this contract.

[robblok]

2 hours ago, Cadbury said:

Does anyone seriously believe the waste will be separated. At best people will dump anything and everything into the bin closest to them and leave the separation to someone else.

At worst they will dump it 100 metres or more from the bins or throw it on the side of the road closest to the bins.

How on earth did they work out that hazardous waste in 2016 was exactly 606,318 tons? The mind boggles!

I actually believe it.. here in my village all waste get separated, i was asked to put my glass bottles separate.. it get picked up by others same goes for paper and plastic bottles. So yea i can believe it. There are also many people collecting trash and separating it. 

[YetAnother]

"have been placed at convenient stores, tall buildings, housing estates and leading department stores throughout the country"

 

That whole idea presupposes that the majority of people actually care

Likely not here in my lifetime

[Lupatria]

5 hours ago, Dobredin Ghusputin said:

 

That last dig was totally unnecessary.

Is there an "s" missing somewhere?

[just.a.thought]

Thank you,next step teach people how to use them..."

[kannot]

i  thought  they  just chucked it  in the hedgerows?

[kannot]

10 hours ago, robblok said:

I actually believe it.. here in my village all waste get separated, i was asked to put my glass bottles separate.. it get picked up by others same goes for paper and plastic bottles. So yea i can believe it. There are also many people collecting trash and separating it. 

ran  out of  rubbish bins  by me had to buy my  own, at  least it  has a lid on so i dont see the festering crap  in there

[robblok]

4 hours ago, kannot said:

ran  out of  rubbish bins  by me had to buy my  own, at  least it  has a lid on so i dont see the festering crap  in there

I think it can vary a lot, but here in my area we pay for rubish collection and there are a lot of other people who are after plastic or glass bottles. Will see what happens today when i put a monitor to the trash (seems the power had failed) Kept it as it worked.. but when i wanted to use it again it did not turn on anymore. Might be some value for someone as it was an expensive HP monitor. 

[Srikcir]

19 hours ago, webfact said:

the removal of hazardous waste from local communities.

Doesn't the military already have army bases for that?

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Here in my neighborhood in Bangkok, we have "local entrepreneurs" who go around for their living and scavenge out of the trash anything that has a recycling value -- cans, bottles, cardboard, etc. etc.

 

But this article supposedly is talking not just about recyclables but instead hazardous waste, which really is an entirely different thing.

 

Right now at home, I've got a malfunctioned lithium ion cell phone battery that's swollen and, from what I've read, in that condition should NOT be used and should NOT be just chucked out into the general garbage.

 

I tried calling the 1111 govt. hotline today to ask, hey, where is there any location in BKK where I can find the supposed 5 colored bins that are mentioned in the OP NNT article. At first, the 1111 guy had no idea what I was asking about, and then later, he called back to claim that they hadn't actually put out any of those color bins as yet -- despite what the NNT article claims above. I have no idea which is the accurate version at this point.

 

But what I'd really like, is some idea of what I can do with a supposedly unstable lithium ion cell phone battery other than chucking it into the general trash???

 

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

And this was in the news about 6 weeks ago, but as usual, they never say WHERE!!!

 

Designated dumps sought for hazardous waste

national June 02, 2017 12:51

By The Nation

 

AddThis Sharing Buttons

Share to FacebookShare to TwitterShare to LINEShare to Google+Share to More

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is able to dispose of just two tonnes of the 30 tonnes of hazardous waste that residents discard on a daily basis, so it’s seeking the public’s cooperation.

 

The items include electronic equipment, batteries and fluorescent-light tubes.

Pollution Control Department chief Jatuporn Burutpat acknowledged after a City Hall meeting on Thursday regarding a joint public-private effort to deal with hazardous waste that the BMA was responsible for collecting and properly disposing of the material.

He said the city couldn’t handle the huge amount of waste being discarded in such a disorderly fashion, so his department and the BMA were urging residents to dump their cast-offs at designated locations.

 

Randomly discarding it could harm the environment, Jatuporn said. 

He said the authorities would seek the private sector’s help in designating drop-off locations at schools, condominiums, housing estates and prominent business establishments.

 

City clerk Kriengpol Pattanarat said the hazardous garbage – old electronics, batteries, light bulbs and tubes and the like – contained heavy metals such as lead, cadmium and mercury that require secure disposal to avoid contaminating the environment and affecting people’s health. 
 

He said the city collects about 10,000 tonnes of garbage a day, two tonnes of which constituted hazardous waste, whereas residents generate an estimated 30 tonnes of hazardous garbage per day.
 

Designated disposal locations for hazardous materials were thus essential, Kriengpol said. The city had hired a private firm, licensed by the Pollution Control Department, to dispose of the collected material at a rate of Bt11,000 per tonne, he said.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Here's a news release announcement I found on the Thai govt's Pollution Control Dept. website that appears to be the same event as the OP article in this thread:

 

http://www.pcd.go.th/Public/News/GetNewsThai.cfm?task=lt2016&id=17659

 

It appears to name the Mall Group, Central Pattana, FamilyMart, CP ALL/7-11 and Siam Makro as participating private entities, perhaps in terms of drop off locations. But whether any of this is actually real at present -- or just pie in the sky plans for the future -- is an open question.

 

Via Google Translate:

 

 

Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment

 

 

No. 55/2560 dated July 18, 2560.

 

Confederate Civil State Separate disposal of hazardous waste

 

 

 

Leading executives from agencies participating in the program of cooperation between the public and private sectors to collect hazardous waste from the community. Wreck electrical products and electronics under the civil state together. Separate hazardous waste 1) PCD 2) Auckland 3) Department of Environmental Quality, 4) Department of Local Administration, and 5) private entities, including the Mall Group Co., Ltd., Central Pattana Public Company Limited (Thailand) Company. Central FamilyMart Co., Ltd., CP ALL Public Company Limited (Thailand) Company Limited and Piwat Siam Makro Public Company Limited (Thailand) presented the project under the civil state together. Separate disposal of hazardous waste And demonstration of separate disposal of hazardous waste. And provide safe collection of hazardous waste (Drop off) to the Prime Minister Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha at Command Building 1, Government House.

 

[kaorop]

Schools as designated hazard waste drop off points?

and what school programs on how to sort it....

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

I did some research checking last night online, and then followed up today with some scouting in BKK, with the following result:

 

Siam Paragon:

--The best location I found was the DTAC service center in Siam Paragon on the cell phone floor, where they have a visible, actual recycling box in the rear right side corner of the store that's labeled for accepting mobile phones, batteries and accessories. Just drop them right in.

 

--The staff at the Samsung shop nearby DTAC in Paragon, when asked, said they will accept any brand of mobile phone or battery for recycling. According to the guy I spoke with there, they collect them and then send them back to their Samsung HQ in BKK for recycling. Just to be clear, the guy I talked with said they would accept non-Samsung products.

 

--The IStudio shop staff nearby on the same floor said they had no kind of general recycling activity, but the guy I talked to did seem to kind of suggest that they might have some kind of recycling program for Apple products only. But I was speaking English, he was speaking Thai, and so it wasn't entirely clear.

 

CentralWorld:

--The staff at the main AIS corporate service center there said they would accept any brand phones and batteries for recycling, and seemed to be saying they had some kind of collection bin or basket back out of the public store area.

 

--While at CW, I also checked with the DTAC, True and Jaymart shops there, and got answers of NO from all of them.

[TallGuyJohninBKK]

Just as an added follow-up here, I was out at Fortune Town shopping center in BKK today, and noticed they still have a set of recycling bins on the 2nd floor about midway down the length of the mall. The red one in the group is specifically labeled for electronics, batteries, etc.

 

 

 

I also checked with the reception center on the first floor (an area that someone else had mentioned in a prior post) and was told there are no recycling receptacles for phone batteries on the first floor there.