Litter in Thailand.

[nevets]

Yes littering is done all over the world , people open the car window and out it goes .Have a picnic leave the litter behind , but i have not seen in the UK any one drink a can of something passing a litter bin only to arrive at the car, finish it and put it on the floor next to the car as they get in and drive away.
In my village 4 rai of land cleared and made ready for planting . As you mite think a lot of small tree's came out hundreds of banana and lime in their plastic bag . The plant went into the ground with great thought , but the bag was left on the ground to fly off in the wind. And we have the discarded bottle used that day or the fertilizer or poison box or bottle , this to is left on the ground after use . No one thinks about the litter that they leave it seams that it is not a subject that is taught in the home or school. This is not just in the rural ares but in the town as well , and although a fine in the town can be inposed does not stop anyone throwing the litter to the floor even when a bin is to hand.

[Big Boy]

Litter is certainly a huge problem in Thailand. I would like to reflect on one of my early trips to my wife's village.

As usual, there was absolutely nothing for a Farang to do apart from trying to hold to body fluids in an attempt to minimise the use of the outside loo that always contained its share of the creepiest crawlies and toads.

The visit I'm referring to was one of my longer visits (about 2 weeks), and boredom was really taking control. I started noticing that no rubbish was disposed of, but just thrown to the ground. Anything that fell on the concrete slab supporting the house was simply swept off several times a day.

As the days went on, I started noticing how all of the rubbish was simply consumed by the land eg:

- On day 1 it would sit proudly on top of the ground.

- Days 2 to 4 it would gradually be trampled in to the ground.

- Day 5, it would have disappeared.

It just got me thinking about my trip around the Jorvic (sp) Experience many years ago in York. Part of the trip there you stand at a piece of excavated land, and you can the various relics through the centuries that had been discarded and become buried.

My mind moved on to 1000 years time, and what an archaeologist would find if he made a dig in Thailand. Assuming the rubbish did not completely decompose, any archaeologist would have a perfect record of how Thais lived.

Sorry nevets for going off on a tangent, but it was rubbish related, and it re-enforces your observation about rubbish being a problem - but who knows how it will be seen in the future.

[migrant]

Rubbish related, but not Thailand related also

I remember from mytimes in Honduras seeing my lady and her 10 yr old son just drop trash on the ground, beach, etc.

When I brought up litter they were genuinely amazed.
"We always do this" was the answer.

I think they did not benefit from the many anti litter campaigns we have heard

[lomuamart]

I used to go up Buriram quite a bit and the underneath the ex's stilted house and surrounding area were full of rubbish. Everything was simply discarded (including uneaten food and scraps of which there was never very much) underneath or round about. And then they complained about flies and mossies etc.
One time up there she got all the family clearing the rubbish up, burning it and actually "tilling" the plot and planting vegetables. The transformation was remarkable after a couple of days.
Needless to say when we went back up a month or so later, the vegetable patch was in disrepair and the rubbish had started building up again. I think she just gave up on her family. It was her house as well, BTW.
The other side of the coin is that I never saw any rubbish collectors there. I don't suppose there were any in the village, so it had to be DIY.

[Vital Spark]

This is one aspect of Thailand that really gets my blood boiling.

The obsession with plastic bags is something I'll never comprehend. My local shop insists on 'double-bagging' anything that's a teensy bit weighty -I've tried to stop them, but they give me that 'poor girl, she doesn't understand' look.

Every month or so I wander around our wilderness of a garden and pick up any non-biodegradable stuff, I end up with a bin liner full. Where the heck does it come from? I don't drink anything from little brown bottles, what are they doing in my garden? We do have neighbours and I guess they toss stuff over the wall, nice...

We don't have any rubbish collection here at all, so I have a large bin for purely burnable stuff (which I burn), and another bin for 'other' stuff. I take the 'other' stuff to the university and dump it into their bins. Yes, I know it's just moving the problem to another area, but what else can I do?

VS

[ozuncle]

My family are pretty bad, but one of the Sister in laws now makes money from :
Cans
Bottles
Cardboard
and I think plastic bottles.

May I suggest that you seperate these items and try and find someone to take them away.
Burning is not too good for the air quality so paper can be shredded and added to your vege waste and turned into beaut compost.
This should reduce your garbage considerably.
Try leaving a container of cans or bottles at your front gate and see if they dissappear.

[lomuamart]

After a short while here, my empty bottles of Chang mount up. Hundreds of the things. One of my wife's sisters, who's got one of those motorcycle side car things, comes round periodically (ie when the missus finds it too difficult to park the bike) and takes all the empties away for recycling. She makes a bit - 150 Baht or so - and is happy with that and so are we to have a clear front yard again - for a month or so

[margaretcarnes]

Yes I understand your frustration with the Plastic Bag Syndrome vitalspark, but please don't feel alone here, I still have a problem with the dolts in my local Sainsburys over this! They start packing the obligatory plastic bag before you have chance to say you don't need one. I wouldn't mind so much if they could even pack bags properly, instead of putting all the squishy stuff under the spuds and bottles.
Maybe one day Thailand will get a grip on the biodegradable issues. Meanwhile as Lomu and Ozuncle have pointed out, they do a damn good job of recycling anyway. I used to pile newspapers up just inside the patio door and a neighbour would come round every week and just walk in and take them away. Likewise plastic and glass bottles - just leave them next to your nearest street bin. A lot of Thai people make a living out of our western waste, which is more than can be said for the UK now. Just don't expect to get a goldfish for it!

[klikster]

We don't have any rubbish collection here at all, so I have a large bin for purely burnable stuff (which I burn), and another bin for 'other' stuff. I take the 'other' stuff to the university and dump it into their bins. Yes, I know it's just moving the problem to another area, but what else can I do?

VS

If you want to be Thai, toss it onto a neighbor's property .. preferably late at night.

I had a similar problem at my last house, but my answer turned out to be my laundry/house cleaner person. Watching her and boyfriend's departure was quite a sight. A week to 10 days laundry, plus all my recycleable and waste-dump garbage, bungeed to her motorcycle.

The reason it actually worked was because she passed within 50 m of the community garbage pile on her way home.

I guess I could have done what the guest house next door did. They would collect garbage for about a month, then talk someone with a blade on a tractor into digging a large pit in the beach to bury it. They didn't even bother burying non-garbage .. just dragged it out onto the beach.

That beach was remarkable. Some of the finest sand on the gulf, water much cleaner than Cha-am, our own little coral reef; and I could step from my property onto the beach. And it was slowly being poisoined by an inept and alcoholic innkeeper.

That's why I sold and moved .. and, fortunately, made a nice profit. But I still miss that quiet beach and the nice folks from the fishing village across the road.

[nevets]

Thanks for all of your replies my offerings to the board do not get a response normally but we have had some fun with this subject and its been good reading all the comments .

[huahinsimon]

I live on a busy street. when I get 6 empty chang yai I put in a plastic bag and set on the curb about 7am, empty aluminium cans also. they dont last 30 minutes. i put some non recycleable bottles in once. They threw them out!!

half a loaf is better than none.
HHS

[niggle]

I bag up all my cardboard, plastics, bottles etc and take to a recycling man around the corner. Failing that bag them up and leave by the side of a bin on the road, within minutes someone will take it for recycling as they can get money for this. Anything else - old mozzie zappers, shoes clothes, electrical, do the same and someone will take away and repair or recycle.
I fully agree about the obsession with plasic bags - they look astounded when I decline them - often using a plastic bag when I'm not looking and want to pust the bag and all in my rucksack

[sandman67]

I saw some, what looked like, boy scouts out the other day going down each side of the road near Takiab with bags and sticks....it looked like they were picking up litter along the side of the road, so maybe some Thais do try to take an interest in their environment.

Theres also ads on late night TV that Mrs S tells me is a Royal initiative trying to educate Thais into looking after the place and not dumping stuff "in the bush".....so it also seems the government are on board.

When I was up at Mrs S's family place in boonies Issan it was weird to see how the family and relatives would just chuck stuff off the veranda into the yard/garden. Mer mum and dad didnt understand why, after the rellys had all gone, I wandered about picking up bottle tops, plastic and fag ends and dumped em in their "bin"....I tried explaining but my Thai is bloody atrocious so they just watched bemused as I "tidied up".

My neighbors all think Im strange as well as they often see me sweeping outside the gate and picking up crap in the soi.....I wonder what they would have thought of my Grandma red lead polishing her front doorstep and boot scraper back home......

"Mad dogs and englishmen sweep up in the mid-day sun...."

[Vital Spark]

I do actually separate our bottles, cans, plastic etc. But we have a wee problem at the moment with some kind of tribal warfare in the village.

Grandma (aka landlady and cleaner) has had some kind of dispute with the local recycling family (next door). So all our tins and plastic stuff is dumped in our flower beds, or somewhere around the garden, instead of being sold to them. Not a pretty sight. So now, it all goes to the university where, I hope, it's picked up by someone not involved in our 'local' dispute.

Nice idea Oz Uncle about shredding paper and building a lovely compost heap with the old rotten veggie bits. One small problem. Snakes and rats. A lovely warm compost heap is snake heaven and home, and any rats (and there are plenty of them round here) would be attracted to the a good lunch of a rotten veggies and encourage even more snakes, and rats. It works well in the west (or down under) but, unfortunately, not here!

It's the aerosol cans, syringes (for dogs, not personal use), CD's that the computer has messed up, etc., that we leave the university to sort out. Another problem: In the corner of my 'office' area I have two defunked monitors, a couple of aged keyboards, and a box from a very old and long since dead computer. Any ideas on disposal of such?

VS

[Takiap]

Plastic bags........don't even get me started. Whenever possible I refuse them at shops and simply pile the goods into the basket on the motorbike. Another huge problem is of course the bins which one finds along the roads. No only do many people think the rubbish should be placed alongside the bin rather than inside but being nothing more that plastic drums, the street dogs tip them over or climb on top and take stuff out. During the early stages of the Emerald Hill development, plastic bags were everywhere here where we stay and it got so bad in the end, I think someone must have complained because they had a whole crew of people cleaning up. One must remember that the vast majority of the labourers are from the north east and when they come down here to work, they bring their habits with them. I have on many occasions watched as one eats an ice cream and then simply drops the wrapper, not even tossing it to the side....lol. We have the father in law staying with us quite often and he is the same, allowing our little one to follow his example which has result in severe telling offs on more than one occasion from my wife who, as strange as it may seem, is one Thai who is fanatical about not having things laying about. I get told off if I even leave a single empty beer bootle out in the garden.........lol. On a more serious note, more bins need to be provided and a better design would help to stop the dogs from getting at them as well.
Bottles, tins, etc are no problem in general as they don't last a minute before being snapped up for selling. Old toys, push chairs, electrical fitting, etc are also snapped up quickly. Builders rubble is a problem because if you pay someone to remove it, you know he will simply drive around the corner and dup it there. I dug a huge hole nearly 2m deep and just as wide when we cleared up after the building and we buried the lot.

Why not try and do as they are dong in South Africa.......supermarkets don't issue bags. If you must have one you have to pay for it and the cost is quite high, a sort of sin tax. If you have only bought a few items, you may in fact find that the bag costs more than the shopping. Not sure how well this is working as I have not been back in years.