Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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

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MDMK wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 7:28 pm :oops:
handdrummer wrote: Tue Jul 31, 2018 4:30 pm
I like the stainless steel straw idea. where is the Pae Mia market?
It's a brave ( or foolish. Hehe) man who asks me for directions. Do please check these with someone with better road sense than me.

From the Phetkasem Road take soi 70... go over the railway line ... so at the roundabout on soi 70 you go straight ahead.... take a right at the next main junction, the carry on for roughly 200 meters and take a right (in the bend). Then it's on your right. Loads of big shipping containers converted into make shift shops. Tuesday is the main night with most stalls. Not sure if it's open other nights in low season. It's my favourite Hua Hin market.
I've not been known for my bravery but I majored in foolishness.

Your directions are clear. I have no idea about the old driving range. I'm not a golfer and have lived here only 4 1/2 yrs.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Well, a huge surprise at TOPS Thonglor earlier. They have done away with the use of plastic bags. They now use paper bags instead and had other reusable bags on sale at 29 baht, which puts VM to shame, who charge 80 baht. All the info is on the bag. Plenty of space in there!

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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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caller wrote: Fri Aug 03, 2018 7:13 pm Well, a huge surprise at TOPS Thonglor earlier. They have done away with the use of plastic bags.
Really good news. One small step for the environment, one massive step for Thailand and it's overuse of plastic. I will shop at the HH TOPS this winter instead of Tesco Lotus.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Do the bags have the same message in Thai on the reverse side??
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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oakdale160 wrote: Fri Aug 03, 2018 9:10 pm Do the bags have the same message in Thai on the reverse side??
Nope. English both sides. I wonder why?
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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That is very suspicious--is it just a gesture to the farangs or possibly a realization that you cant persuade Thai people to change. When i was living in China and that was some years ago --Chinese people would imitate whatever they saw the foreigners doing, but that does not work here.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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oakdale160 wrote: Fri Aug 03, 2018 9:51 pm That is very suspicious--is it just a gesture to the farangs or possibly a realization that you cant persuade Thai people to change.
Neither. At check out there were no plastic bags. Everyone was being given the paper bag as shown above or one without handles, irrespective of nationality.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Mea Culpa--- my cynicism is inappropriate
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Bonfire of the plastic you recycle: Disturbing investigation into a waste industry exploited by criminal 'trash mafia' gangs reveals Tesco bags and M&S packaging burning 1,600 miles away on a rubbish tip in Poland https://dailym.ai/2AKvIwG
MY in BS full of BS.
“When people learn no tools of judgment and merely follow their hopes, the seeds of political manipulation are sown.” Stephen Jay Gould
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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oakdale160 wrote: Sat Aug 04, 2018 12:50 pm Mea Culpa--- my cynicism is inappropriate
Not really! I was on foot yesterday, so decided some heavier purchases could wait until we passed another TOPS in the car, en route to where we were heading earlier. And whilst they had the re-usable bags at 29 baht, plastic was still king. They had no idea when they would be receiving paper bags.

My other half works for The Mall Group at their head office in Bangkok, who part own Bluport and wholly own Gourmet Market. I think they will respond to the moves by Central and VM in due course. They used to have a plastic free Wednesday at their other stores, where you got extra points for bringing your own bag and the plan was to not give out any plastic bags at all, but Thais took no notice, so it fizzled out.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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The question remains; if I bring my own bags will I be able to take them into the market and use them? Or maybe I could refuse the plastic bags and load the groceries into a shopping cart, wheel them to my car and load them into bags there or would the guards stop me and not let me out? Oh, the difficulties of grocery shopping in Thailand. Rhetorical question; If all plastic bags are banned will the prices of goods be reduced or will the resulting lack of cost be added to the profit margins? Why would I pay for a paper bag that will last for only 2 or 3 shoppings? Then there is still the unanswered question of what to do with wet garbage if the plastic bags go away? I don't have a garden, trash compactor or garbage disposal.
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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I don’t often go to Tesco in MV but as we were passing in the week we called in. Prior to going into Tesco we bought some bread from the bakery just outside and when we went to enter Tesco looked for the area where you previously had to deposit anything you had - much surprised the storage area is no longer there and my wife asked an assistant and she said we could take our bread in with us - I assume the same would apply to taking your own reusable bags?
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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It seems here in Thailand, there is more talk of reasons why we need plastic bags, foreigners and locals alike.
Bangladesh was the first country to ban them in 2002. Since then dozens have imposed a ban including 10 African countries (Rwanda banned them 12 years ago) and China, Thailand's favourite tourists.
Considering how Thais view Africans and people from the Indian sub continent, you'd think they would bend over backward to prove themselves better. But the fact is that these countries handle the plastic bag ban quite successfully, some of them have done for years.
Why is it so difficult, nay impossible, for Thailand?
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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It is strange--in Thai a group seizes power, has dictatorial rule--and then fails to govern firmly as decisions may make them unpopular
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Re: Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

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Popularity is very popular in Thailand, it's connected to "face", ie, the ego.
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