Plastic Pollution

            Plastic pollution is one of the major environmental problems in Thailand. According to Dr.SantivipaPhanichkul, Managing Director of Single Point Energy and Environment Company, Thailand produces at least 2.5 million tons of plastics each year (voanews.com). Imagine how muchthat is. This number is equal to 206,136 elephants or 13,888 blue whales. Only 0.7 tons million tons of plastics are recycled each year. Plastic pollution creates other pollution and problems such as landfill problem, water pollution, soil pollution, and air pollution. It does not only affect humans but also affects wild life.Thailand do not take care this problem seriously.

            Where do unrecycled plastics go? Landfills are the first place they go. Landfills get up with waste every day. Most of the waste in Thailand comes from plastic. How many landfills we need to use for 1.8 tons unrecycled plastic each year? Plastic is a polymer so it uses a long time to decompose. It may use up to thousands of years to get done with this process. This means rate of decay is extremely far away from the rate of production. In a few years later all of the landfills will be fill up by waste. More and more waste will come into our home. Plastic does not only rot slowly but also decompose into tiny toxic substances. This pollutant contains a lot of chemicals that affect the environment such as benzene, vinyl chloride, and ethylene oxide. They get down into the ground water and also affect soil biological balance and organic process. This contaminated water gets into household water that we use to drink. All of those chemicals get into our body that causes cancer and other health problems. Another place that these pollutants go is air. They get burn and create a lot of chemicals that create huge damage to atmosphere including dioxin, one of the most toxic chemicals. Humans are not only life on earth.Animals also get effect from plastic pollution. They should not be involved in this circumstance because they are innocent. They are not the people who create this pollution. Many of them get killed by thing that they didn’t do. According to The Nation News, at June 4, Phuket - Dwarf Sperm whale was killed by plastic bag (chemtrack.org). Veterinarian found plastic bags and bottle caps in its stomach. Both of these cause a problem to the whale’s digestive system. This is not only why the animal get killed. Another thing that affects to the animal is that plastic decompose very fast in the water. As we know that plastic decomposes into toxic substances. It pollutes water and kills marine life too.  The problem is getting more and more seriously. It is no time left to playing around it.

            Many organizations in Thailand tried to convince people to recycle, reuse, and reduce plastic bags, but it is not effective because most people did not care about it. They think they are not take part in it. Another reason is they did not get educated enough. Many of them do not know about why we need to recycle plastic, or what plastic causes to our Earth. Thailand should advertise and educate people more about this thing.  Thailand needs to take care about this problem seriously.

            Charging for plastic bag is the solution to solve this problem in Thailand. It is one of the most successful answers for this problem in many countries such as China, many states in United States, Wales, Korea, Japan, Russia, and especially Taiwan. Taiwan began Resource Recycling Program in1997. Charging for plastic bag is included in this program. According to Environmental Protection Bureau, Taichung County statistic, Taiwan recycled 554,200 tons of materials in 1998. This has gradually increased to 2,160,000 tons in 2006 (teepb.gov.tw). The recycling rate increased from 5.87% to 27.72% during this period (teepb.gov.tw).  Charging on plastic bag can decrease the number of plastic bags because people will think before using it. They need to spend the money for it. No one wants to waste the money to thing they do not want. Some part of the money goes to the country to use for cleaning and recycling. Many people will disagree about this solution. They would say why they need to spend to the thing that they usually get free. First answer should be do you want to live in the country that fills up with waste. Reducing number of plastic bag is inverse proportional to developing our country because less money will spend on environmental problem. Everyone wants to live in the clean place without any toxic. Next answer would be how many money you spend on health problem. This solution makes our country cleaner, and less pollution. It direct affect to your health. The last answer is everyone need to take part in this problem not only government.  

           

Plastic pollution is a major problem in Thailand. Thailand should start taking care about it too. Nowadays, you can see plastics everywhere either in the form of waste or goods. Goods transform to waste but waste not transform into goods.This means the number of waste increasing every day. Plastics affect to everything in the world even animals. All of the pollution gets more and more harsh. If this problem has not been solve properly, you can live properly too. Is it the timeto start take care of our world?

Water Issue in Thailand

It is obvious that the increases in economical, agricultural, and industrial expansion are the main causes of water pollution in Thailand due to the fact that the government shows their lacks of management and regulation. Factories dispose waste into natural water resource without processing, resulting in the destruction of aquatic ecosystem. This essay will identify the negative effects of water pollution in Thailand and suggest possible solutions.

The environmental effect is the most obvious of all. Shanley Knox, a journalist, said that 92.68 percent of the total water in Thailand was put at risk as the results of industrial and individual littering, 6.87 percent of the bodies water was highly polluted especially in urban areas. As mention before, water pollution has terminated many water-based lives. For instant, animals may accidentally eat a plastic bag and suffer to dead. Consequently, this leads to the disruption of natural food chains.

Secondly, the country’s economy has an impact on this too. Despite the fact that industrial and agricultural are the main causes of water pollution, government is responsible for ensuring the standard quality of water. Therefore, the Thai government has to spend a large amount of money filtering polluted water. Another economic effect is on tourism.  Many tourist attractions are disturbed as a result of littering both from foreigners and Thai people, which also causes economic problem. Imagine Phuket beach full with plastic bags and aluminum cans, it is certainly not a nice picture to see, especially by local people.

Another direct effect from water pollution is on health. People are likely to have a disease from ingesting unprocessed water. Many bacteria and microorganisms are able to live in a highly toxic environment because it favors them to reproduce and replicate.

It is clear that water pollution has many negative effects; therefore, it is crucial that this problem will be solved before it is too late. This part of the essay will purpose possible solutions.

The Thai government has noticed the situation and been aware of the outcome for a time. Nevertheless, it has not been done in highest quality. According to UNESCO, their case study reported that in 2000, the cabinet had initiated the national water policy for conserving and maintaining water resources. Several of them can be summarized as follow:

• Accelerate the promulgation of the Draft Water Act.
• Set up water management organization both at national and river basin level.
• Promote water related topic in all level of education.
• Give financial supports to any action in line with the national policy

  (UNESCO.org)

It is clear that despite these actions, the policy has not been properly followed. The situation demands for an improvement and carefulness.

First of all, the government needs to enforce the law. Officers could fine any citizen who disobeys the law. In this way, people will be aware of polluting the water both by accidently and intentionally. The Government should consider this option as their priority due to the fact that it is the government’s direct responsibility.

Secondly, any financial, technical, or informational support, including education, should be offered to people who need, especially farmers in rural areas. Many times local people do things that were harmful to the environment with out knowing; thus, it is unfair for farmers to be fined by government officers. Education can help people from being exploited and giving fairness. Also, it is unquestionable that any support, particularly education, will contribute in higher quality of lives of local people.

Another solution is to promote citizens’ conscience. One of Thai people’s attitudes is “sabai sabai”, which translates as “take it easy-no worries” (Knox). Therefore, many people think that their actions are insignificant comparing to size of the issue. If every people think like this, it will definitely lead to a major problem.

Finally, importance should be given more to the issue. Thailand has the technological potential to manage its wastewater, but no one cares. Because of the less obvious effects, people are not able to visualize the overall picture of the problem. Without the picture, it is difficult to have people’s interests in helping cleaning the pollution. A reason is that most residents in big cities, like Bangkok, have access to infrastructure, which provide clean water. This makes people think that water is abundant and has no serious problem.

In conclusion, it is clear that water pollution a many negative effect to Thailand, but it is not too late to start the actions. The environment has the most impact. Many aquatic ecosystems are destroyed as a result of mainly industrial expansion. If people have enough conscience to consider the results of their actions and the government’s policy is done with highest quality, the problem will be certainly resolved.

Waste from schools

Statistics show that the place with highest waste is schools. (Langford) This is very surprising information you might have never think about. No one would believe that a place like school would create a lot of waste. Many people like to think about school as an educational place with a clean and highly organized area. People overlook the problems that are probably created by schools to the society. “More than 53 million children and about 6 million adults spend a significant portion of their days in more than 120,000 public and private school buildings.”(EPA) This shows that most people in the society spend their time in school so schools have big influence in environmental issue to the society. In each single day a huge amount of waste is produced by schools such as paper, water, electricity, food, and other kind of waste. Waste in schools is disposed to landfill, which some do not decompose and create pollution. It causes a school to lose a lot of money to clean up this waste, and spend money for buying new resources. Waste in schools is becoming a big problem in Thailand.

One of the effects caused by waste from schools is that this waste is disposed to landfills. It is found that most of this waste, 85% ends up in landfill, 9% is incinerated, and only 6% is recycled. (Work at Waste at School) Moreover, research shows that about 35% of solid waste is paper and average worldwide annual paper consumption is 48kg per person and mostly produced by schools. That means for every 100 pounds of trash we throw away, about 35 pounds of it is paper. This shows that people do not pay attention to environmental issue and if nothing changes, one day landfills will be scarce and all of the waste will be scattered all over our city. When those organic matters from landfill decomposed they create harmful gas such as methane that effects our environment severely. In addition, the contaminated water from landfill travels from site and contaminate the ground and surface water nearby and landfill is a good breeding area for mosquitoes and rats, which contains diseases that are dangerous to humans. The combustion of waste forms CO2, which pollutes the city and leads to global warming. However, landfilling is just one of the negative effects of waste from schools.

            Another major problem of waste from schools is the schools are losing a lot of money to clean up these waste. Schools are losing money for electricity and water that are extravagantly used. Also, in each day school produces huge amount of paper waste. Think about it this way; how much paper do you get in class each day? Maybe about 3-4 sheets or more, so one class (15 students) uses 60 sheets per day, which is a big number. “The average student produces about 320 pounds of paper waste each year.” (green answer) These paper wastes are dumped at landfill without being recycled. Paper is not recycled because there is no recycle bin in any class rooms for teachers and students to conveniently recycle. From this information, it can be predicted that how much it costs each school for the waste that are not used at their full potential. This is causing a school to keep buying new resources. Though, these problems still exist in Thailand.

            Most schools in Thailand do not care about environment and do not seriously solve these problems. They pay more attention to student academic work and activities, but not caring if their students learn about environmental problems and care the world. There is no effective solution made by schools in Thailand because even the school themselves do not have enough understanding and knowledge to deal with these problems.  With nearly about 8,000 schools all over Thailand, schools have important role to help solving with national waste problem. (MOE) The most important solution is to educate students on environmental issues and implants them to use thing sufficiently because one day these children will grow up and be an important part of the society. Schools should teach their students how to recycle and the harmful effects caused by the waste they produce. Education is the only way to produce a powerful and high-quality population for Thailand. There are also other solutions school can do to promote recycling.

Another way to solve this problem is to start a “separating waste” campaign so that some of the waste can be easily re-use and recycle. Schools can also make centralized print stations and makes a rule for teachers to recycle paper. This would save large amount of paper used in school and also save the school money too. Other things school could do are to change their machines, and electric appliances to be an economized one such as light bulbs. This solution may require a lot of time and money for the changes, but it would certainly help saving the world. These solutions will decrease large number of resources a school needed to buy and money school needed to pay for light, water, etc. and also fewer trees will be cut down, which will allow animals live in their habitats and will not die. This also decreases the rate of flooding and unpredictable catastrophes, which causing people to lose all their money and properties and this may lead them to commit suicide because of stress. “Reducing paper consumption just 10% – the rough equivalent of getting your office to buy paper with more recycled content – would be like taking 280,000 cars off the road.”(thedailygreen) Schools will produce less waste and pollution and the most important thing is that it allows students to learn about caring the environment.

School produces a lot of pollution each day, which has a long term effects to the world and the environment that you may not be able to see it today. This is a time to call for action. Waste from schools is a big number compare to other places, if not dealt with properly, will continue to be a big problem for Thailand, now and in the future. By not dealing with this huge amount of waste, you are contributing death, and unpredictable catastrophes.  To solve this problem does not require any difficult work or effort, but only continually actions. This problem is not just for someone to solve it, but for everyone. So let’s start changing yourself for a better world.

Deforestation

“Tropical deforestation is responsible for about 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions - more than all the cars, trucks, planes, boats and trains in the world combined.” (greenpeace organization) Now, over 75% of the forests in Thailand are gone because of deforestation. (wrm organization)  This is a major environmental problem in Thailand. Deforestation is removing or cutting down forest area. There are many cause of deforestation. People cut down trees for industry and space for farming and living. Wood industries are growing continuously in Thailand. Deforestation can cause natural disaster such as flood. It also affects wild life. We should find a way to stop deforestation or we will be facing disaster. 

     Deforestation causes many environmental problems including air pollution and natural disasters. It is one of the causes of the global warming. In the atmosphere, there are gases such as methane, chlorofluorocarbons, nitrous oxide, and ozone which help to control the heat loss to the space. Having too much of these gases will keep the heat in the Earth. Trees can help to absorb these gases. Trees can absorb carbon dioxide and replace it with oxygen. They also help to absorb pollution in the air. The water cycle is also affected by the deforestation. Trees absorb the water under the ground and release it to the air which produces atmospheric moisture. So if there are no trees the water in the soil will not be adsorb up which causes flood and landslide. As you can see, Thailand is facing with flood every year. Flood destroy people’s house and effect the economic. Tropical rainforests also produce about 30% of fresh water on earth. (coolearth organization) Insects and other wild animals are affected from deforestation. They have no places where they can live.

     There are many causes of deforestation in Thailand. The major cause is the growth of population. As population increase the demand for food is also increase. The forest needed to be cut down for people to find space for farming. Also, people will need more space for living. So the forest is replaced with people’s house. Another cause of deforestation is the wood industry is growing very fast. The demand of wood is increasing every year. This includes the increasing of paper demand. The government is not taking this problem serious enough. There are still many illegal logging industries in Thailand.

     There are many ways to solve this problem. One easy way is to recycle things that are made from trees. Use the brands that made papers from recycle papers. Government need to give education to people about recycling. Many people still don’t know why recycle is important. Recycling can help to save natural resources such as trees. While stop cutting down trees seem to be impossible because trees are important for industry, also affect job opportunities, we could try to cut down less trees. Making a law to control logging is a good way to control deforestation.  The law should prevent the forest are that should not be cut down from being cut down. But in Thailand laws don’t seem to work, so making laws is not a good solution. We also could find a new way for farming to prevent cutting down more trees. There are many places for farming without cutting down trees. We could lower the demand of food that used a lot of spaces to farm for example eats less cows.  Another interesting solution for deforestation is to replant trees or we called “reforestation”. This solution seems to be the most realistic solution. In many countries, reforestation is helping to increase the forest area. It takes a lot of time for trees to grow. So we need to stat reforestation as soon as we can.

     Deforestation problem is not hard to solve if everyone take care of it seriously. Everyone needs to know that they are affected by deforestation. No one wants to see flood or mud flow happening in Thailand. This problem needs to be solved immediately or more bad things will happen to us. Everyone needs to help solving this problem before it is too late. As Mahatma Gandhi once said “You must be the change you wish to see in the world”