Phuket is looking for better ways to dispose of waste, which is increasing in volume with the strong recovery in tourism.
Phuket province , Norasak Suksomboon, said:
"Every day, 1,100 tons of garbage are trucked to a waste disposal plant in the province."
This figure is up from 742 tonnes in 2022 and 961 tonnes last year, according to figures from the provincial statistics bureau and the pollution control department.
Mr. Norasak discussed the challenges facing the province at the 25th Inter-Island Tourism Policy Forum.
This forum brought together 150 policymakers and global tourism leaders to discuss the future of tourism, sustainability challenges, and strategies to build resilience to climate change in Phuket.
Phuket's permanent resident population stood at 418,000 in 2021, according to the Provincial Administration Department.
This figure does not include people from outside the province and other countries who work on the island.
Garbage bags on a Phuket street. Photo: ASEAN Now.
The island welcomed 11 million local and foreign tourists last year, up from 5.7 million in 2002, according to figures from the Ministry of Tourism and Sports.
The province has only one incinerator, run by the Phuket Municipality, which can only process about 900 tonnes of garbage per day.
The rest is sent to landfills around the island.
According to the Pollution Control Department, only 10% of Phuket's waste is recycled and 60% is organic waste.
Mr. Norasak enlisted the help of volunteers and environmentally conscious residents to participate in a campaign to reduce waste by turning organic waste into compost or soil amendments instead of transporting it to disposal facilities.
He said the province needed their help to tackle the problem on their doorstep.
Earlier this year, the municipality piloted a "garbage bank" in the Samakkee Samkong community in Phuket Town to recycle waste and garbage.
If this trial is successful, it will be extended to other locations.
See also:
Thailand: Tourist destroys pizzeria and attacks manager in Phuket
49 dangerous places designated in Thailand, including some in Phuket
Thailand closes Phuket's Big Buddha after deadly landslide
Source: Bangkok Post
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3 comments
The initiative, even local, to begin this experience of collecting and recycling organic waste is a first approach to contain the expansion of non-recyclable landfills in well-hidden places, in the center of the island's forested expanses...
The same goes for other islands which have the same problem of waste treatment (exceptional in Thailand, because it is expensive) and its evacuation or destruction or even most of the time its dumping in open-air dumps, far away and well hidden from the sight of tourists...
This is particularly the case in Koh Chang, Phi Phi, Koh Samui, etc., as elsewhere in the whole of Thailand where open-air dumps are often the only solution considered on a large scale and where selective sorting and recycling remain in certain cases marginal, local or regional initiatives and constitute exceptions, especially in rural regions.
As far as Phuket is concerned, regardless of the municipality's efforts to increase the share of recyclable waste to be removed from the island by boat to recycling companies (glass, hard plastics, cardboard, cans and metals) as well as the treatment of organic waste into compost, it is already clear that the construction of a second incinerator of the same or greater capacity will be necessary in the short term to avoid the proliferation of open-air dumps, which will then be impossible to manage or eliminate.
The only valid solution in the medium and long term is the construction of a second incineration unit of at least 1000 tonnes/day...
And we must not wait until the problem of waste disposal becomes even more problematic than today; the situation is already critical and irreversible...
Eliminating the existing environmental damage, which will progress at an exponential rate if nothing is done on a proper scale, will cost the island's government much more money than a new incinerator...
A word to the wise!!!
A bit like everywhere else and because of this, money must come in at all costs, and at any cost.
I've traveled a lot, but now that we're settled in Thailand, I've noticed right away that money is incredibly important here. You can do whatever you want, everything revolves around money, even among children, from the youngest to the oldest.
Sometimes it's really depressing, like wanting to take a bunch of bills and force them down someone's throat.
IT'S ALL IN THE TITLE...