December 4th, 2018 is Thai Environment Day

Today is Thai Environment Day. Today convenience stores, trade stores and shopping malls will refrain from providing single-use plastic bags to shoppers and at the same time will campaign for donation of cloth bags to be distributed to hospitals for containing medicines.
Whether any of this actually happens, we will see.

The proposed plastic bag-free day is the outcome of a memorandum of understanding signed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and operators of convenience stores, trade stores and shopping malls to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags.

The cynical campaign is another chance for the Thai government to indicate its ‘commitment’ to the Thai environment and the reduction of single-use plastic bags whilst doing next to nothing to actually solve the problem.

The problem of single-use plastic bags, the removal of these items out of the retail chain and the proper disposal of plastics remains unmanaged and unplanned in Thailand.

Back in October the Central Pattana Group in Phuket, the operators of Central Festival and Central Floresta, who also own the TOPS supermarket chain and Family Mart convenience stores, loudly lauded their ‘no plastic bag’ campaign which meant they would ask customers if they really needed a plastic bag and offered a 200 baht cloth replacement… ONE DAY A MONTH.

The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is saying that after the “plastic bag-free day” today, all the stores and malls will work out their own measures to reduce the use of the plastic bags, such as designating a day or a few days of a week that no plastic bags will be provided to shoppers.

According to unofficial estimates, each Thai generates 1.4 kilograms of garbage a day or 74,000 tonnes of garbage a day for the entire population which means that a total of 2,960 10-wheel trucks with the capacity of hauling 25 tonnes of garbage each will be needed to carry the trash to dump sites or land fills for disposal.

There is enough evidence from multiple studies and surveys (or just walk along any Thai beach) to show that single-use plastics are a major environmental threat and need urgent political attention and action instead or meaningless words and PR stunts.

Credit The Thaiger.

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Adam Judd
Mr. Adam Judd is the Co-owner of TPN Media since December 2017. He is originally from Washington D.C., America, but has also lived in Dallas, Sarasota, and Portsmouth. His background is in retail sales, HR, and operations management, and has written about news and Thailand for many years. He has lived in Pattaya for over nine years as a full-time resident, is well known locally and been visiting the country as a regular visitor for over a decade. His full contact information, including office contact information, can be found on our Contact Us page below. Stories please e-mail Editor@ThePattayanews.com About Us: https://thepattayanews.com/about-us/ Contact Us: https://thepattayanews.com/contact-us/