'Eco-friendly' Krathongs cause fish kill in Thailand

While touted as an eco-friendly alternative, bread krathongs killed a large number of fish during the Loy Krathong festival.

Every year, during the festival of lights, Loy Krathong , Thais place Krathongs, small decorated rafts, in rivers, lakes, seas or ponds.

However, this custom causes significant pollution of aquatic environments, so the government encourages people to use Krathong made from biodegradable ecological materials.

Unfortunately, one of these alternatives, Krathong made from bread, caused the death of many fish.

Users certainly thought it was a good alternative, which would feed the fish, but it had the opposite effect.

Pornphrom Vikitsreth, an adviser to the Bangkok governor, posted photos of piles of dead fish on Facebook on Friday, saying they had died from salted bread krathongs floating in a pond in Bangkok's Santiphap Park.

Pornphrom said 4,000 of the 6,810 krathongs collected in the park after Monday's Loy Krathong were made of bread.

He explained that the bread krathongs had sunk and polluted the water, resulting in the death of "almost all the fish in the pond."

After receiving complaints from visitors about poor water quality, park authorities collected the dead fish and replaced the pond water.

Pornphrom said the incident was proof that bread krathongs were not environmentally friendly, but rather a threat to nature.

According to Pornphrom, nearly half of the krathongs collected after Bangkok's Loy Krathong festival this year were bread.

At Benchakitti Park, 2,500 krathongs out of 5,790 were bread, while at Nong Chok Park, 800 krathongs out of 1,544 were bread.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) said Tuesday that 639,828 krathongs were collected from the city's waterways after Monday's festival, an 11 percent increase from last year.

See: Big clean-up after the Loy Krathong festival in Thailand

Almost all (618,951) were made of natural materials, while 20,877 were made of plastic foam.

Source: The Nation Thailand