Page 17 from: October 2016

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17October 2016

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Bangkok locked in
‘constant battle’ with
plastics
When it comes to some
materials, it seems we can’t live
either with or without them.
That’s certainly the case with
plastics – especially in Thai-
land’s capital Bangkok, The
Straits Times has reported. City
workers are fighting ‘a constant
battle’, it states, to remove up to 2000
tons of plastic waste from the sewers
each day in a place where only 16% of
plastic scrap is recycled annually.
According to government figures, Bang-
kok generates around 11 500 tonnes of
waste daily, of which at least one tonne
is plastic – a figure that is said to be
increasing by 10% every year. Mean-
while, the average Thai uses no less than
eight plastic bags a day, which is far
higher than, for example, the 80 plastic

bags used annually by consumers in
France. Local officials are concerned that
resource efficiency and recyclability are
not a priority for most of the city’s inhab-
itants. To help boost recycling rates and
cut pollution, Bangkok’s clean-up crew
is now taking on prisoner volunteers to
collect plastics from drainage pipes and
rivers in return for a reduced sentence.
Recycling in Thailand is handled mainly
by the informal sector and the national
recycling rate is around 30%.

Albanians fear becoming
Europe’s refuse dump
Several thousand Albanians have
massed in the capital Tirana to demand
prime minister Edi Rama overturns a law
allowing waste imports for recycling
which has revived fears the country
could become a dumping ground for
Europe’s refuse.
Rama has angered environmentalists by
reinstating the legislation in a bid to prop
up the country’s flagging recycling indus-
try just three years after he repealed a
similar law proposed by the previous
government soon after coming to power.
According to environmental activists, the
law will enable wealthy neighbouring
countries such as Italy to send dangerous
and polluting waste to be destroyed in
Albania, one of Europe’s poorest nations.
Walking behind a poster proclaiming
‘Enough with our own garbage’, protest-
ers waved red cards at Rama’s office and
threw black rubbish sacks with his photo

printed on them. Others sprayed the
name of Rama and other government
ministers on bins throughout Tirana.
‘We want the law scrapped because it
has devious loopholes that allow imports
of waste, such as to generate electricity
from burning garbage,’ environmentalist
Lavdosh Ferruni has told international
media. ‘This inevitably leads to more pol-
lution.’ Another protester accused Rama
of betraying his own vision of a ‘renais-
sance’ for Albania.
Rama has defended the law, which
passed through the country’s parliament
with a ‘very small majority’, stressing
that the imported volumes of plastic,
paper and wood will be recycled and
that incineration and landfill are prohib-
ited. Only recycling plants can obtain
licences to import waste and customs
officials will be checking all shipments,
it is stressed.