Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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HHTel
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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The 5p charge for plastic bags in large shops in England could be extended to cover nearly all retailers, as part of government plans for the environment.

Environment Secretary Michael Gove told a meeting of the cabinet that he wanted to tackle our "throwaway culture".

Shops with fewer than 250 employees are currently exempt from the charge, which since being introduced in England in October 2015 has cut plastic use.

The government is set to unveil its 25-year environment plan on Thursday.

Briefing the cabinet on Tuesday, Mr Gove said the government was "determined to tackle the throwaway culture which plastics encapsulate".

All you need to know about the 5p charge
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The 5p charge on single-use plastic bags in England has contributed to a reduction of nearly 90% in their use, the government said.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Ok charging in the UK has had an impact but it is still not the solution. Ban them full stop
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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The charge is only part of the way that usage is reduced. A UK Tv reporter did a nice piece where she stood with a cashier in a s-market. The reduction in people taking bags was not as great as reported elsewhere. What was interesting was that over 60% of the customers taking bags either apologised or made excuses why they had not brought their own bags. There is a social pressure and in western countries its just not 'fashionable'
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia’s biggest supermarket chains are scrambling to combat “bag rage” as frustrated shoppers vent their anger over the removal of single-use plastic bags. One man put his hands around a supermarket worker’s throat, the West Australian newspaper reported, while grocery stores are putting on more staff to help customers get used to the change.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aust ... SKBN1JR158
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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^ Re-introduce paper grocery bags! :banghead: They were good enough for everyone for most of a century and I can clearly remember being asked all the time at check out, "paper or plastic".

If one thing recycles well it's paper and cardboard. Most paper bags and boxes we use now are made from recycled paper.

The removal of single use plastic bags should be simultaneous with the re-introduction of paper bags IMO.
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Other than that, I'm starting to be of the opinion that there will be no choice but to have a huge worldwide burn off of plastic waste for a period of a year or two. Get the stuff out of the landfills, get it out of the sea and incinerate it getting us back to a manageable playing field going forward. The short term environmental damage can't be any greater than the long term damage if the stuff is left to sit buried, and floating....IMO. Pete :cheers:
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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And several African nations have had them banned, some of them for years. Makes you wonder about so called 'developed' nations as opposed to some countries who are 3rd world or recently developed.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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The terror group Al-Shabaab has banned single-use plastic bags in areas of Somalia under its control, arguing that the waste is bad for the environment.

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/c ... m=July2018
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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"Hua Hin Hospital charging for Plastic Bags"

After the recent International Plastic Bag Free Day of 2 days ago, Dr. Sida Sae-nee - Deputy Director of Hua Hin Hospital - has announced yesterday, that the hospital will soon charge every person 1 Baht for a plastic bag if they don't bring their own bag and would like a bag with it for their medication starting on 1 October 2018.

Source: Daily Hua Hin

Thoughts: Why wait until 1st October?

[Edit] I've just looked at the photos, and realised she's my doctor. I knew she was senior, but I'm impressed with 'Deputy Director' :D
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Starbucks Bans Plastic Straws, Winds Up Using More Plastic
2018 will forever be remembered as the year that hating plastic straws went mainstream. Once the lonely cause of environmental cranks, now everyone wants to eliminate these suckers from daily life.
https://reason.com/blog/2018/07/12/star ... he-company
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Bid to cut plastic use irks shoppers, traders

https://www.bangkokpost.com/news/genera ... s#cxrecs_s

The government's campaign to reduce single-use plastic bags in fresh markets may not be practical, according to traders and customers at the Klong Toey fresh market, one of the biggest and busiest in Bangkok.

The market in central Bangkok is always teeming with shoppers. On an visit yesterday, many were seen clutching several plastic bags full of perishables in both hands.

Fresh markets are one of the biggest dispensers of plastic bags.
One shopper carried a bag containing fish, with meat, vegetables and fruit in other bags. Some pushed along a trolley filled with shopping in plastic bags.

Walana Tinpae, 56, a seafood seller at the market, snorted at the mention of the government's campaign, saying customers were accustomed to being given plastic bags to put their fresh fish in to carry home.

One customer typically asks for a plastic bag for the fish, another to take ice to keep the fish fresh and a third, bigger bag to hold the other two full bags.
She gives about 2,000 plastic bags a day to customers.

"Some customers say the bus driver won't let them in unless they double-bag their shopping. [The driver] might be afraid one bag might tear and mess up the bus," she said.

"I have no reason to refuse my customers' wishes. They come first."
She insisted she is fully aware of the pollution plastic bags cause. "But what do we have to replace them with?" she said.

Wassana Boonkusol, 50, a fresh vegetable vendor, noted only foreign customers bring their own shopping bags, saying the practice is admirable.
However, phasing out or reducing plastic bags is inconsistent with reality, she said.

Most people find it convenient shopping with plastic bags and they are not about to trade their convenience for an environmental cause, according to the vendor.

Wannapa Singchant, a 62 year-old dried food seller, said she tried to limit the number of bags she gives customers by squeezing the shopping in one bag if possible.
But it does not always work. For example, she cannot put strong-smelling fermented fish in with the rest of the shopping.
"Customers say they need at least two bags for that and I can't say no to them," she said.

Yesterday, the government kicked off the campaign to reduce foam and single-use plastic bags at fresh markets countrywide.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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I've noticed that some of the local food vendors have started using traditional packaging, I've had a few takeout meals over the last couple of weeks that have been wrapped in banana leafs.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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I've told several Thais I know that they can ban plastic bags in African countries and they handle it. Does that mean the Africans are cleverer than Thais?

They usually go on the defensive and argue that they can do without the bags. It's not their fault. It's the shopkeepers!

I think that the more they are shamed, the better chance it has of working.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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STEVE G wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 11:36 am I've noticed that some of the local food vendors have started using traditional packaging, I've had a few takeout meals over the last couple of weeks that have been wrapped in banana leafs.
For me that is fantastic news and I really hope it continues and spreads. As for the comments from traders and customers at the Klong Toey market, they should have been asked what their parents and grandparents did. After the stupid look of ignorance on their faces fades perhaps the Gov can set up instructional classes to help them. :thumb: Pete :cheers:
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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STEVE G wrote: Sun Jul 22, 2018 11:36 am I've noticed that some of the local food vendors have started using traditional packaging, I've had a few takeout meals over the last couple of weeks that have been wrapped in banana leafs.
Impressive!
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Bag campaign 'not consistent with reality'

https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/opi ... th-reality

"It's inconsistent with reality," shoppers and traders cried as they continue to ignore a state campaign to reduce one-time-use plastic bags that began on Saturday.
In the latest effort to curb the use of plastic waste, the government focused on fresh markets, blaming them for producing massive amounts of this kind of waste.
It's a far cry from success; a failure, I would say. As my colleagues reported on Saturday from Klong Toey market, one of the busiest trading places in the country, it's business as usual for shoppers and traders who stubbornly said "no" to the campaign, saying it's not convenient.

According to the report, not a single Thai shopper thought twice when demanding a plastic bag even for dry food (which can be put in a tote bag), and sometimes sought two bags for one item, like seafood or fish (which can be avoided, should they prepare old bags for re-use). The traders, in turn, feel the need to satisfy their customers.

Am I surprised with the failure? Not a bit. Everybody cited inconvenience. It's too difficult to get out of one's house with a cloth bag or used plastic bags, to use as substitutes for new bags when shopping. Well, there may be shoppers who care, but they are too few to count.

One vegetable vendor noted that only foreigners bring cloth bags. This is interesting. Only Thais find it too difficult to embrace a green, responsible life-style.

What surprises me is: Why do state authorities continue to cling on to the same old methods that take them to nowhere? How many campaigns have they conducted against plastic bags and failed, only to go back to square one time and time again? Don't they have an ability to learn from their mistakes?

We all know Thais love convenience and will not trade it off unless they are forced to. As they balked at the campaign, saying it's "not inconsistent with reality".

But in making an excuse not to reduce one-time-use plastic bags, Thais turn a blind eye to this crucial fact: Thailand is among the top five countries that generate more than half of plastic waste in the world, according to a 2015 Ocean Conservancy report. The other four "champions" are China, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam. The agency said about eight million tonnes of plastic waste are dumped into the world's oceans every year, the equivalent of one garbage truck of plastic being tipped into the sea every minute of every day.

Those who continue to use these kind of bags choose not to care about this fact: There are impacts on health, not just animals but to humans. Something called microplastic contamination is real.

While complaining about inconvenience, they forget to think about this, too: More and more countries are up in arms against plastic bags, and some take on the fight and win. It's unfortunate the authorities have ignored this fact. May I remind them those countries are governed by elected politicians, not a military regime with enormous power like Thailand.

I once wrote about the experience of Kenya which waged a war on plastic bags -- the very same item that wrecks our environment -- last August. In fact, Kenya is a latecomer in Africa on this issue. Countries like Rwanda, Cameroon, Eritrea, Tanzania and Morocco, to name but a few, set an impressive example long before that East African country.

Kenya's environmental agency, Nema, opted for extreme measures, so extreme that no recycling or reuse of this kind of bag is allowed. And the penalty is harsh. Anyone with a one-time-use bag in possession will face a hefty fine, up to four million shillings (about 1.3 million baht) and imprisonment even for possession of such a bag. Wasn't there any complaint about such a harsh measure? In fact, there were complaints. Those in the industry even threatened job losses.

But Kenya pressed on with the effort. Nema allowed for another type of better-for-the environment plastic bags made of polypropylene. And these cloth-like bags are not free. Shoppers have to buy every single bag they ask from traders who have no hesitation to push the burden to buyers. If you want a bag, you have to pay for it.
And, as the Kenyan experience shows, money always makes people think twice. With strong enforcement, the one-time-use items disappeared overnight.

A number of countries around the world have learned this and act accordingly.
Our Asean friend, Indonesia, which faces the same plastic pollution problem has a plan to impose excise taxes on plastic bags this year. The fight against plastic bags is not easy, but it's not impossible.

Only a lameduck government allows its people to make a lame excuse for an irresponsible lifestyle.
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