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» 21.08.09 Phuket's men of the cloth in plastic purgatory |
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21.08.09 Phuket's men of the cloth in plastic purgatory
The landfill, built on 120 rai of reclaimed land, is surrounded with mangroves.
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Phuket Provincial Energy Office director Jirasak Thommayet.
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PHUKET
CITY: With the landfill at Saphan Hin continuing to pile up at the
alarming rate of about 300 tonnes of waste per day, the provincial
government hopes a new campaign promoting the use of cloth bags will
help cut down the waste stream until a second incinerator is completed.
The
island’s sole incinerator, built and operated by Phuket City
Municipality but responsible for all of the island’s waste, can process
just 250 tonnes per day.
Phuket now produces an average of 540
tonnes of waste daily, so the 290 tonnes that can’t be burned must be
added to the landfill.
The overburdened landfill now has four-meter-high berms surrounding it to contain all the extra garbage – and more is coming.
Phuket will produce 800 tonnes of garbage per day within five years, according to official estimates.
The growing volume of garbage has already caused one ecological disaster.
In
June 2007, heavy rains caused a highly toxic plume of water from
plastic-lined leaching ponds to enter surrounding mangroves and
waterways, killing millions of farmed fish.
Stench from the pile
has also made residents of the nearby Ban Saphan Hin miserable,
especially on days when onshore winds blow the stench straight into
their community.
Help is on the way, but a new 600 tonne per day incinerator planned nearby won’t open until October 2010, at the earliest.
In the meantime, Phuket is facing a garbage crisis.
But the province has a new weapon in the fight to reduce the amount of garbage it generates: the cloth bag.
This
week Phuket Governor Wichai Phraisa-ngop launched a campaign to
encourage island residents to swap their plastic bags for re-usable
cloth carriers.
The project, run by Phuket Provincial Energy Office (PPEO), is being branded with the name ‘Phuket Green Island’.
PPEO
director Jirasak Thommayet said the ambitious project aims to reduce
the volume of plastic bags used in Phuket by 60 percent, equivalent to
5,000 tonnes per year.
“We need to take care of our island,
starting by reducing the number of plastic bags we use and replacing
them with cloth,” he said.
Cloth bags will be promoted with
posters showing the governor – one hand clutching a cloth bag, the
other giving the ‘thumbs up’ – above the message: ‘Let’s use cloth bags
together’.
The project will include asking local businesses to offer discounts to customers who use cloth bags rather than plastic.
“We’re also asking local government organizations to provide budgets to make cloth bags for Phuket villagers,” Mr Jirasak said.
Source: Phuketgazette, 21.08.09
http://www.phuketgazette.net/news/index.asp?id=7696
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