Campaign planned to brief public on garbage fee hike

Provincial governors have been instructed to raise awareness about new regulations to be enforced that will charge households a higher garbage collection fee as well as an additional fee for disposal of the garbage.

An Interior Ministry source said the Department of Local Administration (DLA) recently wrote to provincial governors across the country asking them to ramp up public campaigns about the proposed ministerial regulation, which includes a hike in “garbage management” rates.

The proposed regulation, which comes under the Cleanliness and Tidiness Act promulgated earlier this year, is now being vetted by the Council of State, the government’s legal arm.

The garbage management rates largely break down into the garbage collection fee and garbage disposal fee. The collection fee, currently 20-40 baht a month per household, will increase to 65-102 baht per household per month.

The new disposal fee will be set at 155 baht per month for a household producing no more than 20 litres of garbage a month. The fee will go up if the amount of garbage exceeds 20 litres.

Households will be charged both fees. “The department has approved a 4.18-million-baht budget for 76 provinces, 55,000 baht for each province, for expenses in setting up billboards to promote understanding about waste disposal management,” the source said.

“People will be told about the new fees as well as areas that are exempted from the fees,” it added.

According to the regulation, subject to the Interior Ministry’s approval, people who discard rubbish bear responsibility for the garbage management fees, which will be used by local administrative bodies to deal with waste disposal.

According to the DLA, local administration organisations nationwide spend much more money disposing of waste than it has the budget for.

In Bangkok, City Hall collects around 500 million baht a year to manage household waste while the actual annual cost has risen to six billion baht.