Thailand dies in its own garbage
Thailand has a waste problem, the processing of household waste is lacking on many sides. Thais produce an average of 1,15 kilos of waste per person per day, a total of 73.000 tons. In 2014, the country had 2.490 landfill sites, of which only 466 are properly managed. More than 28 million tons of waste goes untreated and ends up in canals and illegal landfills.
in Bangkok Post you can read that the situation in Bangkok is dire. There is rubbish on the street and waste is dumped on every piece of vacant land. The canals are also used as a landfill. This causes major problems when it rains. Canals and weirs become clogged, causing flooding. At a clogged weir in Bangkok there was five tons of household waste and even bulky waste, such as mattresses and furniture.
The cabinet regards waste processing as an important spearhead, but no real decisiveness has been achieved. Usually it remains with plans, which get bogged down in bureaucracy. According to the Bangkok Post, there must be a change in behavior among the Thai. So far, well-intentioned initiatives have failed. An example of this is the attempt by large shopping centers to limit the use of plastic bags, which was abandoned after just a few months.
The newspaper believes that the Thai government should focus more on changing the behavior of the population that works better than ambitious plans that remain in a desk drawer.
Oei oei oei… Change the behavior of the Thai? That will amount to a total re-education!
Let's take a look at the photo that illustrates this article: rubbish on the water, houses on the water,… If you consider that on the other side there is only a narrow soi through which you can reach those houses, you already see a problem : maybe no garbage truck can get through there… I also saw that in Bangkok from a bus boat (or boat bus?) in a canal right through the city…
Much can be said and written on this subject. In my answer I will not go deeper into this topic. But the problem lies with both the population and the responsible politicians.
Nevertheless, I would like to end my answer on a positive note: at my parents-in-law in a village in the Isaan, plastic bottles (and other plastic) are not thrown away with the 'ordinary' household waste.
I think it could – unfortunately – be many years before these problems will be solved…
Will the Thai politicians also respond to this with the Thai version of 'Wir bouw das'?
It doesn't surprise me that those plastic (water) bottles in Isan are not thrown away with the other waste.
At first I thought that the neighborhood dogs were regularly digging in my garbage can and throwing everything next to it.
Later it turned out to be a Thai (not quite up to date due to years of drinking too much) who dug up the plastic bottles.
So now I throw them next to the garbage can.
They're never there very long anyway.
The plastic bottles are not thrown away because many sell these bottles again to so-called buyers, who buy them for a few thaibath per kilo.
The "ordinary Thai" will not quickly throw away anything of value (plastic bottles, cardboard, cans, etc.). This is easy to sell and on a monthly basis there is still a nice penny to save.
Personally, I also find it difficult to get rid of "coarse waste", there is no such thing as a landfill or environmental park where you can bring it and the ordinary garbage truck does not take it (unless they can use it/ to sell)
What I don't understand about most Thai people, they are almost all very proud of their country, while they themselves degrade this country into a rubbish dump. At most supermarkets, the purchased goods are divided into numerous plastic bags and bags, while with a little thinking more than half of these packagings were superfluous. Since my Thai wife lives in Europe, and every plastic bag has to pay at the checkout, she either takes a bag from home, or reuses the plastic bag from the supermarket until it falls apart.
what I do not understand from the farang that they are so careless with their waste and blame it on the Thai.
I have no problem getting rid of my waste. Plastic and glass go to a slob who is happy with them, even lives off them. And there is always someone available for bulky waste. In the Netherlands I had to pay to get rid of it, here they are still willing to give money for it. What a luxury.
So apparently there are about 2500 legal dumps in Thailand. Can someone tell me if such a dump can also be found in Hua Hin or the surrounding area.
I don't know but in samui it's bad as far as the Thai are concerned Driving Al's on the moped dumping is all along the roads
Yes, there is also a landfill in Hua Hin. Can be reached via Soi 112 … Nong Thamniap area.
Hello.
Not all Thai have that mentality, my girlfriend goes to the big waste bins here twice a day, and glass bottles and plastic go separately. Here in the soi where we live in Pattaya you will not see any garbage on the street. Even in the other soi's where I go you don't see litter anywhere, only in the evening on second road, but that is gone the next morning. It is of course clear that many Thais do not mind that, and that is the biggest problem, as on the beach, Thais do not leave any rubbish there, because they do not come there, but the tourists, I have seen often enough
It can also be different in Thailand…
Kind regards, Rudy.
Well here near korat I have never seen a garbage truck!
Everyone burns their garbage here
And idd cardboard, glass, plastic, old iron, someone always comes by and buys it
Well here in the suburbs of Korat, in my beautiful Moo Baan and others, they come to collect the garbage for free 2 a week. With a truck.
It is therefore perfectly possible to live off the proceeds of waste separation.
And 1 x per week other waste, pruning and garden waste and more is collected.
I myself put all empty plastic bottles aside for a Thai friend and I also collect cardboard and the like and offer it separately.
Garbage collection with me is better than in the Netherlands even; there it takes 2 weeks before your container is emptied and you are not allowed to offer more than your container.
In my soi it takes so long for the garbage truck to come by that garbage is just lying around on the street. Open old 200 liter oil barrels as waste barrels. Put there by the garbage collector. These barrels are everywhere. Then first rain and then sun and then the stench. And you think that's better than in the Netherlands? Thailand should be ashamed of the way it treats the environment.
Well, we are one of those people who separate their waste: plastic, glass and paper are stored in large barrels with us, which we then take to the local processor every two or three months. For all that "dirt", which you have to pay at an environmental park in the Netherlands to dispose of it, we always get around 100 baht for this…. that is then immediately converted into a nice ice cream at the 7/11.
Garden waste? I have two big barrels made of cement rings in the back of the garden and I throw all the garden waste in there. When the bins are full I throw a little 91 over it and set it on fire. Two days later, there is only a bottom left…
The same goes for peels and other biological residues.
Food that is left over and is not eaten by us goes to a bowl near our garbage can, which our two neighbor dogs, Muhan and Yoeng-Young look forward to every day and keep our front door free from strangers…
If there is always some leftover…that has to be put in the rubbish bin, which costs us 350 baht a year!
So it is possible….
Almost identical with us. Just add that a lot of inedible kitchen waste can be used as fertilizer for flowers, plants and vegetables, and that the purchase of one or two shopping bags can save a lot of useless plastic bags.
Garden waste – Isn't composting a better solution than letting it burn for 2 days? Can also be used in the garden afterwards.
Thailand is a very beautiful country, but unfortunately there is no garbage processing process as we know it in the Netherlands.
I really hope that the government makes this a priority, so that it also has a positive effect on tourism income and the quality of life for the Thai themselves. I do my best to make my Thai family aware but that takes time.
They're not that far here yet, but hopefully they'll be fine later.
In the end it will be fine.
Last holiday I saw black metal bins in front of every front door in the Isaan and in the far north, in the small villages. I thought that these were intended for incinerating waste yourself and that the ashes would then be collected once in a while. Is this correct?
Those black metal bins are not metal bins but made of rubber. So burning is not possible, but I don't know how the garbage collection is.
Is Kantharalak, the rubbish is collected in the district several times a week, which we have to put in blue barrels. Anything dropped next to it will not be taken.
So larger green waste and other things are a problem, but my girlfriend often knows someone who will pick it up for free.
When I asked the owner of my condo where I could put my glass bottles, the answer was: "Just put them with the rest of the garbage". Here in Narathiwat, the waste is absolutely not separated. Where the beaches could be among the most beautiful in Thailand, many are marred by large amounts of (plastic) junk. That is of course never the case with tourism.
Well, dear Emthij, you must have been mistaken, if you had looked closely, those rubber containers are made from car tires.
Those rubber bins cannot be burned for waste. I also have a bin like that here and the neighbors all have a black bin like that.
You also painted those bins in green, then I once stopped near Kalasin, they make those bins there.
SO Emthij they are not metal but Rubber.
Where I live, no waste is collected, there is rubbish everywhere and there is an illegal rubbish dump a few kilometers away. And then the Thais mainly do the burning of waste here. Plastic stinks very badly and is also very bad for the children who then ingest the smoke. I said something about it a few times, but that doesn't help anything, collecting the garbage costs almost nothing, but they say it is too expensive for these villages.
In our Soi, the garbage cans/bins are emptied once a week (Bangkapi).
Empty, and not collected, is the right word here, because there is more on the street after the garbage truck has passed than in the garbage truck itself.
During the week people regularly rummage in the barrels / bins to see if there is anything usable left in them.
Finally, you have the garbage collectors who also sort, if they find something that will generate money, before it finally goes in or next to the garbage truck.