Representatives of the SRTA, as well as concerned environmental groups such as EARTH and Greenpeace, were invited to the meeting. According to the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, a circular economy seeks to rebuild capital, whether this is financial, manufactured, human, social, or natural. Which means instead of losing something by simply throwing it away, we find a way to reuse it or rework it into something else. It is also estimated that, plastic waste in Thailand is recycled at the rate of approximately 0.5 million tons per year, while the remaining 1.5 million tons are mostly single use plastics (SUP) such as hot bags, cold bags, handle bags, plastic cups, plastic straws, foam boxes, and food containers. Unauthorized use is prohibited. The problem is that the price [that collectors are paid] for waste mostly goes down, often several baht at a time. hb``"mv[@(e Vk98s)Tl3\l60MT1R~3'l[UdmJw6s 5*y2_'k#1D]TWkJ*dvEl`\lJ There are roughly 30,000 government-registered recycling businesses who buy materials from the saleng, selling on in bulk to manufacturers. Taking a more direct approach, EcoThailand seeks to improve local beaches and waterways by working with the Thai government, local communities, and tourists candidly to create and maintain a clean environment, addressing the plastics problem on multiple fronts. People and companies used to view the use of plastics as a linear process: you make something, you use it, and you throw it away. While there are many large, internationally known nonprofit organizations working to combat plastic pollution in the oceans, homegrown groups in Thailand play a key role in providing education on plastic pollution while also encouraging people to take practical action steps on a local level. The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network. The roadmap will be used as a policy framework to deal with problem of plastic waste in Thailand. 0000327166 00000 n We use this information to improve our sites and report on the reach of our content. BioBPS compostable cups designed to help combat plastic pollution. 0000014242 00000 n 0000467926 00000 n As a result, in February 2020, the government raised the minimum purchase price of waste paper from 0.5 baht (US$0.01) to over two baht (US$0.06) per kg, a significant increase that satisfied the saleng. 0000009509 00000 n hbb2``b``3 1x4> $ 0000001996 00000 n 0000011994 00000 n But the era of single-use plastic using a plastic item once and then tossing it away may be coming to an end. Septembers protests by the saleng were sparked by an online meeting on the 6th of that month between government agencies and other parties involved in the waste import and recycling sector, including large manufacturers. Cloudflare - Cloudflare is a service used for the purposes of increasing the security and performance of web sites and services. Uncarefully discarding of plastic waste is a very common practice in Thailand. H\j0~ Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a deputy dean of faculty of fisheries of Kasetsart University, added that in order to solve marine litter problem. A study report released by Ocean Conservancy in 2017 indicated that Thailand, China, Indonesia, Philippines and Vietnam together as the group of countries which dump plastic into the oceans at approximately 17 Million ton/year which is more than the rest of the world combined. 0000010093 00000 n The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, expected that this policy willresult in reduction of volume of plastic waste by 0.78 million tons per year and save 3.9 billion baht in cost of waste management annually. 0000002565 00000 n Pristine unspoiled waters and clean golden beaches in Ko Samet, one of the Eastern seaboard islands of Thailand. 0000210894 00000 n The discarded plastic is also usually run off to rivers and canals, and eventually ends up in the sea. The catch? %EG>u+e{GmEi $GetP$ U.U@2bXt H2e(`ehfg8p;c;C$C8&g/$UV^ya>1S/0)310>tcgAbRJ'@HnFF7&~vv/3e/`I-gcX!AA-"l#@jfQ Qd` Started in 2013 with Thai beach cleanups, Trash Hero is an effective homegrown way to demonstrate the immediate problem at hand. According to the Plastic Pollution Coalition, by 2050 the oceans will contain more plastic than fish by weight. Well-organised, and armed with petitions signed by 108 organisations, the protesters visited every government agency involved in the process of importing plastic, including the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Department of Industrial Works under the Ministry of Industry and the Customs Department. In 2017, 10 tons of PET waste bottles were collected from Samet Island and coastal areas in Rayong, and turned into 50,000 polyethylene terephthalate t-shirts. If an aggregator does not have a convenient outlet with which to sell a specific material, or the price is unfavorable, they will tend not to accept the material, and it will become waste. 0000378290 00000 n Under the right conditions, the composting process for this bioplastic takes about 180 days. This article is written by Chris Oestereich Frsa, Linear to Circular and Wicked Problems Collaborative. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. 0000011768 00000 n Adopting a circular living approach, like this, to plastics benefits the environment, the companies that create and sustain these practices, and the consumers who need to use plastic products but dont want to contribute to a plastic waste problem. Sorting will reduce the amount of plastic waste sent to landfills and increase the reuse of plastic through the recycle or upcycle process of private companies and to provide a circular economy system. The little guys are not alone. Later, a working group on the development of plastic management mechanism as secretary of the subcommittee was also set up. 0000406779 00000 n The SRTA and others involved want the ban to go into effect before the end of this year. The ministry had estimated that the campaign would reduce the amount of waste from plastic bags up to about 13,500 million bags. The government was set to ban imports of plastic in September 2020 as part of its Roadmap on Plastic Waste Management 20182030. 0000012247 00000 n Plus, more consumers are holding companies responsible for both preventing and cleaning up waste from plastic products. The materials accepted by different organizations vary. Individuals can take steps to reduce their own plastic usage by doing things like using a metal straw instead of a disposable plastic one, bringing along reusable bags when shopping, drinking water from a reusable water bottle and using sustainable plastics or plastic alternatives - like bioplastic - instead of single-use alternatives. The Big Apple has a rich and storied maritime history. 0000362474 00000 n H\j >wIh]n!~$cylOgo [aQqNe)1Nn[-97]pW`t{hPp^z"4CHpqD (h i?e03Q Cb2Ld12"3#7)VB{r:LSMu@ 15 endstream endobj 651 0 obj [/Indexed/DeviceCMYK 240 700 0 R] endobj 652 0 obj <> endobj 653 0 obj <> endobj 654 0 obj <> endobj 655 0 obj <>stream 0000376733 00000 n The roadmap was later acknowledged by the cabinet at its meeting on January 4th, 2019. 0000012804 00000 n 0000002916 00000 n At present, information from the Department of Industrial Works puts the number of companies with permission to import foreign waste operating in free zones around the country at 40 to 50. The policy that government of Thailand used to combat COVID-19 are social distancing, working at home, and closed down of gathering places such as restaurants, theaters, conferences and shopping malls. The discovery of a fossil horse tooth in Haiti has given surprising credence to the idea the horses escaped from a Spanish shipwreck off Virginia around 1750. Their more recent actions will have been equally hard for the government to ignore. more of our content on biodiversity. This is according to data it collected for an upcoming report from all the available official sources, including figures from the auction of containers full of imported plastic waste at Laem Chabang Port. 0000391728 00000 n the processes of waste collection, sorting, and recycling. According to the United Nations, the pandemic has pushed millions of Thailands most vulnerable back into poverty, increasing reliance on informal work like that done by the saleng. Holding placards announcing their demands, and calling on officials to come out and receive their petitions, they were determined to make their disapproval heard, and hoped this would persuade the government to bring the ban in imminently. Partner Content for PTT Global Chemical, PLC. If there is a change in government then the policy will change again, says recycling business owner Thawat. It is believed that majority of this incidents are due to marine plastic garbage. They bring these materials back to their house, sort them and then take them to be sold at a local recycling company. The draft version of roadmap was presented to the National Environment Board and get approved. This growth is much higher than last year growth of just 14% with around 120 million orders. 0000437095 00000 n Nathida waits her turn at the recycling centre to weigh the materials she has delivered (Image: A worker at Thawat Krairaks recycling plant in Bangkok collects plastic bottles to feed into a compressing machine (Image: EARTH Director Penchom Saetang (left) and Attaphon Charoenchansa, director-general of the Pollution Control Department, speak at a meeting attended by the SRTA and environmental groups at the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. 0000376858 00000 n 0000011882 00000 n By September 6th 2019, the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment had announced that 75 large and small retail businesses had already joined the No plastic bag distribution project. If the price drops, we cant just stop trading, she said. 0000009082 00000 n According to the roadmap, after 2019, three plastic products namely, 1st cap seal (plastic that cover bottle cap) 2nd OXO-degradable Plastic and 3rd Microbead, will be banned. When the SRTA became involved following the increase in imports in 2018, the two sides decided to collaborate, attacking the issue from both the environmental and the economic angle. 0000210921 00000 n 0000051399 00000 n 0000378023 00000 n Pollution Control Department (PCD), Thailand has also investigated this problem and estimate that approximately 80% of marine plastic garbage in Thailand is actually originated from land-based plastic garbage. Since the start of 2018, when China began imposing bans on waste imports there, Thailand and other countries in Southeast Asia have become a new dumping ground, inundated by plastics, electronics and paper, as well as other types of waste, coming mainly from western nations. Facebook Inc.- Facebook is an online social networking service. Get the latest updates and invitations to your inbox with SEIs newsletter. 0000115584 00000 n Now, efforts are being made at various points throughout the life cycle of a plastic item to ensure that it doesnt simply go to waste. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. Photograph courtesy PTT Global Chemical, PLC. Debate deepens over Wuhan market's role in the pandemic. All rights reserved, 450 years it can take a plastic bottle to biodegrade. This small business buys in electronic waste collected by, Roadmap on Plastic Waste Management 20182030, Bonn climate talks end with almost empty pages, Chinas Five Year Plan for energy: One eye on security today, one on a low-carbon future, Nickel drama highlights Tsingshans role in energy transition, Belt and Road must align with Paris Agreement government guidance, Chinese standard tries to kickstart a sustainable rubber revolution. 0000010621 00000 n Subscribe now, and And by doing so, Clean the Beach Boot Camp says theyve removed 1.2 million pounds of garbage in four years. 0000178350 00000 n document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Keep update -E{04i!a2 6O|GVC?gC-2]Wo{i,Oup6t:yt1. PTT Global Chemical Public Co., Ltd. (GC), an international petrochemical company based in Thailand, developed a circular living approach to the use of plastics using three core components: waste management, recycling/upcycling, and compostable bioplastics. Plastic cutlery or plastic straws when ordering food through the app Food Delivery turned to using reusable materials instead.Waste separation, when the packaging or plastic container cannot be avoided, is what consumers should do in order to solve out the plastic packaging waste. 0000000016 00000 n Meghan Kerrigan was walking along the beach in Koh Samui and was devastated by the amount of plastic littering the area. - access to the latest news, most of which is now unavailable or only partially available here. On April 17th 2019, the roadmap on plastic waste management, 2018-2030 was presented to the cabinet and get approved. By separating food waste and cleaning the packaging and then collecting these plastic waste to be discarded. It rarely goes up, said Nathida Rerkyanyong, a second-generation saleng working in northern Bangkok, and an active member of the SRTA. But there has so far been no official response. In response to this, as well as the possibility of a four-year continuation of the current policy on waste imports, they organised physical protests outside ministries, demanding an apology and explanation. 0000209564 00000 n 0000009353 00000 n The saleng in particular took their removal from the meeting as a sign their voices were not being considered or respected. Copyright 1996-2015 National Geographic Society, Copyright 2015-2022 National Geographic Partners, LLC. 0000147134 00000 n I myself personally lost over a million baht, and people were not able to continue dealing in paper.. Weekly newsletterGet EHS news in Asia every Monday. Google Analytics - The Google Analytics cookies are used to gather anonymous information about how you use our websites. 0000014940 00000 n The breakout of roles is somewhat complicated due to the coexistence of formal and informal work. The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes. China Dialogue uses several functional cookies to collect anonymous information such as the number of site visitors and the most popular pages. People who are not employed by such entities are known as informal workers. These include people who work independently or for unregistered businesses. On July 8th 2020, the minister of natural resource and environment ordered PCD to set up a new action plan with food delivery companies. A system of moveable walls, called Moses, protects Venice from colossal high tides that are worsening with climate change. But theyre also destroying the marshes that keep the lagoon alive. At the meeting, the director-general of the Pollution Control Department, Attaphon Charoenchansa, explained that the authorities are considering three options in relation to the ban on plastic waste imports: cancel all remaining imports that have already been agreed, commence a ban in 2023, or push it back to 2025. 0000391447 00000 n 0000295160 00000 n The organization offers free beach workouts at three different locations, for tourists to both burn calories and feel great after. There is an option not to accept cutlery or plastic bags started in August 2020.The same is true for restaurants, that may replace single-use plastics with biodegradable containers. 0000377512 00000 n See how organizations are reducing waste by embracing a circular economy model. 0000011382 00000 n 0000376423 00000 n But it takes more than individual efforts to have a large-scale effect on the plastic problem. If you are a social media user, then we are able to do this through a pixel provided by Facebook, which allows Facebook to place cookies on your web browser. You can see the trend of plastic regulations in Asian countries in the following: We are experts of EHS in Asia. Clean the Beach Boot Camp takes a different approach by appealing to visitors to Thailand. 1.03 Million ton/year was estimated to be from Thailand.
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