Long road to a cleaner land
Solving the plastic waste crisis will require public and private efforts, write Pitsinee Jitpleecheep and Yuthana Praiwan
Recent media reports about plastic waste and marine animals harmed by pollution have raised eyebrows, but this begs the question as to whether consumer awareness of plastic use is also being addressed by big businesses that provide products laden with plastic materials.
As we all know, Thailand’s bureaucracy is slow, inefficient and tedious, so hopes of public initiatives to raise public awareness of reducing plastic waste are up in the air. On the other hand, the private sector can play a key role in reducing plastic waste by spearheading programmes designed to prevent excessive use of plastic-related materials in consumer goods.
Single-use plastics, often referred to as disposable plastics, are commonly used for plastic packaging and include items intended to be used once before they are thrown away or recycled, according to UN Environment.
These items include grocery bags, food packaging, bottles, straws, containers, cups and cutlery.
The economic damage caused by plastic waste is vast. Plastic litter in the Asia-Pacific region alone costs the tourism, fishing and shipping industries US$1.3 billion (43.3 billion baht) a year, said UN Environment.
“Plastic bag bans, if properly planned and enforced, can effectively counter one of the causes of plastic overuse,” UN Environment said in its report entitled “Single-Use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustainability”. “Nevertheless, to tackle the roots of the problem, governments need to improve waste management practices and introduce financial incentives to change the habits of consumers, retailers and manufacturers, enacting strong policies that push for a more circular model of design and production of plastics.”
CORPORATE INITIATIVES
Thailand generated up to 2.33 million tonnes of plastic in 2015, according to Greenpeace Southeast Asia. Despite claims that 1.57 million tonnes was reused by communities and industries, there remains a substantial amount of waste that is disposed of both correctly and incorrectly.
There are 2,490 waste management centres nationwide, but only 466 of them manage waste using proper waste containment to prevent air and water contamination and proper controls over external factors such as preventing surface water from entering landfills, said Greenpeace Southeast Asia.
Phattaraporn Phenpraphat, executive vice-president of Central Food Retail Co, the operator of Tops Supermarket, said the company will take another serious step to encourage customers to use cloth bags or alternative packaging to replace the use of plastic bags this year.
Starting in August, on the 3rd of each month, the company will not provide plastic bags to shoppers at 277 Tops branches, up from the previous 193 stores.
The campaign will run until December, at which time an assessment of the campaign’s success will be made.
“No plastic bags is not a new thing for Tops,” Mrs Phattaraporn said. “We have promoted customers not using plastic bags, encouraging them by giving away free [shopping] points when they shop at our supermarkets for the past two decades.”
At present about 200,000 customers refuse to receive plastic bags from Tops per month, up from about 100,000 in recent years.
“I feel that more customers are concerned and have greater awareness about environmental problems,” Mrs Phattaraporn said. “Our encouragement has received a better response year by year from customers, particularly in Bangkok and major provinces, if they were informed in advance.”
All Tops food courts are now free of foam packaging.
The company expects to reduce the use of plastic bags at Tops by 3-4 million between August and December, but this excludes 200,000 monthly customers who already refuse plastic bags. Tops uses about 200 million plastic bags a year.
“Central’s top management is concerned about environmental problems,” Mrs Phattaraporn said. “Apart from Tops, other business units under our group also take a serious approach in reducing plastic bag usage.”
Besides plastic bags, Tops Food Hall and 27 branches of the Segafredo coffee chain will switch from using plastic straws to biodegradable straws made from 100% corn, she said.
BIODEGRADABLE CUPS
Since the 1950s, growth in the production of plastic has largely outpaced that of any other material, with a global shift from the production of durable plastics to single-use plastics including packaging, according to UN Environment. The making of plastic is largely reliant on fossil hydrocarbons, a nonrenewable resource.
If the growth in plastic production continues at the current rate, by 2050 the plastics industry may account for 20% of the world’s total oil consumption, said UN Environment.
As part of corporate social responsibility, PTT Plc, the national oil and gas conglomerate and founder of Cafe Amazon, announced a decision to reduce plastic waste.
In the long term, the company expects to cut plastic waste with paper cup replacement to the tune of 200 tonnes a year.
Jiraporn Khaosawas, executive vice-president for the oil business unit at PTT, said the company launched biodegradable cups for hot drinks six years ago, including paper cups coated with polybutylene succinate (PBS), a biodegradable substance.
For cold drinks, the group has coordinated
Plastic bag bans, if properly planned and enforced, can effectively counter one of the causes of plastic overuse. From the UN Environment report entitled ‘Single-Use Plastics: A Roadmap for Sustainability’