Tips for recycling and reducing plastic use in Thailand

[robcar]

I was in out local Tesco Express yesterday (near BKP). I bought 3 items...... yoghurt, eggs and milk. They were put in 3 separate plastic bags. Perhaps they are just trying to use up their stock..... lol

[Nereus]

The question is why the F are they only doing it for one day when the rest of the world is banning them outright.

The staggering plastic bag statistic after supermarkets' controversial ban

https://au.news.yahoo.com/staggering-pl ... 33801.html

The ban on single-use plastic bags by Australia’s two largest supermarkets prevented the introduction of an estimated 1.5 billion bags into the environment, and the retail industry is hopeful this is only the beginning.

Coles and Woolworths’ decision to stop offering single-use disposable plastic bags mid-way through the year was initially met with swift public backlash.

But three months on, the radical change has translated to an 80 per cent drop in the consumption of plastic bags nationwide, according to the National Retail Association.
“Indeed, some retailers are reporting reduction rates as high as 90 per cent,” NRA’s David Stout said on Sunday.

Mr Stout says the ban was a “brave” move from the major supermarkets and is paving the way for smaller businesses, who typically can’t afford to risk the wrath of their customers to follow suit.
“They’re (supermarkets) obviously seen as the product stewards so a lot of people will come back to them,” Mr Stout said.

“Obviously the best thing for smaller businesses is to either engineer out the bag completely or have the customer pay … they should be able to consider that strategy without fear of backlash.
Mr Stout is hopeful major retailers will continue to lead the charge towards a more sustainable industry and move to ban other single-use packaging options.

“Everyone delivering things in a package need to take responsibility for what they deliver it in,” he said.
“I think there’s going to be a lot more pressure on all of us to be more aware of what we consume.”

With NSW the only state or territory in Australia that hasn’t moved to legislate to phase out plastic bags, Mr Stout says it’s time to step up and quit relying on the supermarket ban to do the work.

“We’re still seeing a lot of small to medium bags being used, especially in the food category, and whilst I get some comfort that the majors have done this voluntarily I think there still needs to be a ban in place,” he said.
“For business, for the environment, for the consumer and of course even for councils which have to work to remove these things from landfills, there’s a multitude of benefits on a whole to doing this.”

[Big Boy]

Saw this sculpture on the beach at Cha-Am yesterday. Obviously carrying a significant message.

[HHTel]

I was in out local Tesco Express yesterday (near BKP). I bought 3 items...... yoghurt, eggs and milk. They were put in 3 separate plastic bags. Perhaps they are just trying to use up their stock..... lol

So say "NO". I do.
As far as using up their stock, they're only following others in not supplying them for ONE day.

[Dannie Boy]

I was in out local Tesco Express yesterday (near BKP). I bought 3 items...... yoghurt, eggs and milk. They were put in 3 separate plastic bags. Perhaps they are just trying to use up their stock..... lol

So say "NO". I do.

I agree - the other day I was making an Indian curry and wanted a single pot of natural yogurt - the assistant offered me a plastic spoon and a bag to which I both refused.

[handdrummer]

What will we put fresh fish, meat & frozen food in to carry them home or is the ban only at checkout?

[PeteC]

I don't know what their plan is, but for meat and fish there's butcher paper like was used before plastics. Many stores here already use it to wrap cold cuts, and you can put it in the freezer as well without problems.

Our eating and buying habits have changed so much it will be hard for things like frozen and fresh vegetables and fruit. In the old days there was really no frozen to bring home. Fruits and vegetables were sourced from local produce markets and people shopped much more often, daily in many cases, and bought only what was need for that day or possibly two. Paper bags will hold fruit and vegetables well if not dripping wet, but I'm not sure Thai stores even have the heavy duty brown paper bags? Pete

[laphanphon]

Thankfully PKK municipality stores are still bagging, or we would need to buy bags for trash bin liners. Bags aren't the problem.....people are and what they do with them.

Since they love watering the fruits and veggies on display, paper bags aren't going to serve much of a purpose.

Again, type of bag / container isn't the problem, it's the people and gov't, and how they dispose of them. Incinerate (hopefully to generate energy, not just pollution), dispose of properly, no problem. Littering, mismanaged landfills and dumping at sea.....big problem.

[Pleng]

The thing I don't understand is... Paper bags are useless for lining your bins with. So if I a ban ever came into place full-time I'd actually end up using almost as many plastic bags as before, except now I'll need to pay for them, and I'd end up with an additional load of paper bags that are of limited use...

[buksida]

What did people line their bins with before plastic bags existed? Most trash can be separated now, its only the food waste that causes a real minging bin problem and a lot of that can be composted.

Some suggestions: https://www.biome.com.au/blog/naked-bin ... bin-liner/

We have very little in our kitchen bin these days.

Plastic bottles, tins, metal and glass all goes to the recyclers.
Green waste, fruit, veg etc all gets composted.
Regular plastic crap, wrappers, packaging etc goes into ecobricks.
Paper, cardboard and wood waste gets burnt.

That doesn't leave much. As mentioned above people are the problem, choosing to avoid single use plastic and taking a bit more care over what and where you discard is exactly that - a choice, but a very important one.

[MDMK]

The thing I don't understand is... Paper bags are useless for lining your bins with. So if I a ban ever came into place full-time I'd actually end up using almost as many plastic bags as before, except now I'll need to pay for them, and I'd end up with an additional load of paper bags that are of limited use...

more or less repeating what Buksida said, only food waste (wet waste) needs lining, the rest should be separated out and is dry so has no need of lining. We have to separate it here or we'd be fined by the council. I use a tiny bin for food waste (wet waste), 5 liters in size and it gets emptied into an outside bin that goes for composting. And if you only have a tiny amount of wet waste in a tiny bin, it really doesn't need lining as rinsing it out with water takes seconds. My "bin" is about the size of a baking bowl (but not round).

10 or 15 yrs ago I was like you, I really didn't see how this was going to work, and I am hyper about hygiene, cleanliness, smells and things, but honestly it's dead easy.

Pete C had a brilliant tip that I used in Thailand and use here now in our summer. Keep your wet waste in a container in the freezer. My bin for wet waste fits easily in a freezer drawer, so there is never any smells if you keep it in the freezer.

[HHTel]

The thing I don't understand is... Paper bags are useless for lining your bins with. So if I a ban ever came into place full-time I'd actually end up using almost as many plastic bags as before, except now I'll need to pay for them, and I'd end up with an additional load of paper bags that are of limited use...

There are plenty of biodegradable/compostable bin liners on the market. Don't make excuses!!

[Big Boy]

The Shame

We forgot to take our 'forever' bags to Tesco today. "Never mind," I said, "We'll buy some more for today's shopping." They'd sold out of the 'forever' bags. OK, the new paper bags it would have to be.

We got to the checkout, and it was one-use plastic bag business as usual.

So everything I reported reading about paper bags at Tesco seems to have been fake news.

[Pleng]

There are plenty of biodegradable/compostable bin liners on the market. Don't make excuses!!

Thanks everybody for the feedback. I was really only replying in the context of the article about banning of plastic bags and rather than the whole thread in general.

Your average joe isn't going to go out of their way to find bio-degradable bin-liners. Even if I was to do that myself, my bin bags go into one great big bin bag which are definitely not bio-degradable. I'm not smelling out my condo making compost (and then what to do with the compost??), I recycle my plastic, I'm not going to start making bricks out of them! And as for filling up my limited freezer space with a box full of wet waste... I'm not even sure what that's supposed to achieve, anyway.

So at the end of the day I don't see a move to paper bags a win for society in general, as I don't see it reducing plastic consumption - just increasing paper consumption. If all bin liners and grocery bags were of the bio-degradable type then you might just make a serious impact.

[buksida]

So at the end of the day I don't see a move to paper bags a win for society in general, as I don't see it reducing plastic consumption - just increasing paper consumption. If all bin liners and grocery bags were of the bio-degradable type then you might just make a serious impact.

For society and the environment, yes, plastic bags need banning. Paper will break down in a fraction of the time that plastic does.

For you personally, obviously a no as you're seeking excuses not to change your habits and ridiculing any suggestions given to you.

As said above - people are as much the problem as the plastic is. This is why the decision should be taken away from them by enforcing an outright ban as many countries already have done.