Is all of Thailand polluted now?

[Dolphin99]

I see increasing reports of chemical runoff in small cities, cancer rates exploding, and hear that nearly all beaches have regular waves of debris that blanket the beach in rubbish due to the size of the garbage masses in the ocean.

 

Even in tiny islands in less developed areas of asia, I see people complaining about masses of garbage washing ashore and dying coral.

 

Is it becoming so bad that quickly?  My last time in the area was only a couple years ago, but I saw nearly no garbage (but it might have been cleaned) and the coral was only dead in populated areas.

 

My last visit to the Phils, remote areas were completely pristine.  That said, Thailand is much more developed than the Phils.

 

I have been working in China and the pollution is better hidden outside of Beijing than you might think given the coverage it gets.  I hope Thailand isn't turning into China...  I guess we can always flee to Indonesia or the Philippines... but in most other regards Thailand is much more pleasant.  I was planning on settling in Thailand, but the thought of all this getting worse bothers me.  Thoughts?

[DUNROAMIN]

All Asians countries are the same, they do not care about the environment, Thailand is polluted everywhere, plastic rubbish everywhere, overflowing sewerage/chemicals and smog. Nearly all is due to poor government infrastructure and education to the general population.

[zaZa9]

It makes you shake your head.

 

Kids leaving school in green , "Im (sic)

care for the world" T Shirts , and stopping  to buy food at pushcarts , only to dump the plastic drink cups and plastic food bags on the ground.

Day after day of rubbish washed up on formerly prisitine beaches.

Illegal garbage dumps a few metres in to empty blocks.

Its just so sad ...

[Deerculler]

Thailand is highly polluted and filthy.

 

[Jimbo2014]

Its worse than  you can imagine.  A horror movie.  Garbage on all the beaches and around the resort areas, toxic food in the supermarkets.  Im dreading November to February again, the whole of Asia gets blanketed in a thick smog owing to open burning of agricultural fields.  The education level is terrible.  On the one day a month they have no plastic bags in supermarkets I hear people in lines complain, even though everything else is layered in 3 layers of thick plastic.  Paradise lost.  We holiday in places like Australia now.  Its a shock how clean our own countries are by comparison.

[Jimbo2014]

Its worse than  you can imagine.  A horror movie.  Garbage on all the beaches and around the resort areas, toxic food in the supermarkets.  Im dreading November to February again, the whole of Asia gets blanketed in a thick smog owing to open burning of agricultural fields.  The education level is terrible.  On the one day a month they have no plastic bags in supermarkets I hear people in lines complain, even though everything else is layered in 3 layers of thick plastic.  Paradise lost.  We holiday in places like Australia now.  Its a shock how clean our own countries are by comparison.

 

https://www.thailand-business-news.com/environment/71453-thailand-ranked-23rd-most-polluted-country.html

[e2x10]

Aim for the foot.

[BritManToo]

3 minutes ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Im dreading November to February again, the whole of Asia gets blanketed in a thick smog owing to open burning of agricultural fields.

Not the whole of Asia, just Thailand.

I took a trip to Saigon, then Phnom Penh to escape it and they were totally clear.

Flying back into Bangkok, it was as if there was a yellow blanket across the country from BKK to CNX.

[BritManToo]

19 hours ago, Dolphin99 said:

I was planning on settling in Thailand, but the thought of all this getting worse bothers me.  Thoughts?

Live somewhere else, if I wasn't already here, I wouldn't be coming now.

Beer and women too expensive, VISA too many rules and regulations, polluted air for too long.

[Brunolem]

It is sad to read all the above posts, but they only reflect reality. 

 

The whole world is polluted, all the way up to the Everest, all the way North to Greenland, and so on. 

 

Bali is awful... there are some underwater videos on Youtube that make you wonder... and don't mention the Dominican Republic. 

 

Thailand is worse in the sense that, as explained above, the local population appears to be happy to live in its own garbage, as if the one brought by the wind and currents was not enough. 

 

The fact that there is no garbage collection in many villages doesn't help. 

 

Public garbage bins are also a rarity. 

 

In some major shopping centers, I sometimes have to walk for 10 or 15 minutes with something I wish to throw away, for lack of garbage bins. 

 

Having said that, food pollution/poisoning is worse, and indeed there are many cancers among people in their 40s.

 

Finally, the air is also polluted, and not only in the North because of the crop burning. 

 

Me and my son, as well as countless others, suffer from accute allergy (running nose) almost year round... it only gets a bit better during the rain season (when there is one) when the rain somehow brings down the particles causing this allergy. 

[Pilotman]

Virtually all of Thailand's issues can be laid at the door of a very poor education system, right from the early years education, or lack of it, to the abysmal University and post graduate system.  Education  is the key to the development of a modern society and this society is broken, maybe terminally so.  What is not helping is employing many third rate western English teachers, many of them not native English speakers, who seem to be here for an easy life, rather than a love of, or expertise in teaching. Such people compound an already poor level of education. 

[Darkside Gray]

Bet your life it is!

[villagefarang]

The green pollution where I live is just awful.

 

 

[elgenon]

So you believe those countries have no pesticide and herbicide problems? Or farm run off or factory run off?

 

The American president is good at reversing what Reagen did. Wasn't he the one who created the EPA? Anything that's good for business is good for the U.S. Huh?

[elgenon]

3 minutes ago, villagefarang said:

The green pollution where I live is just awful.

 

 

What's that blue stuff called?

[villagefarang]

Just now, elgenon said:

What's that blue stuff called?

Not sure but it sure hurts my eyes.

[LomSak27]

1 hour ago, BritManToo said:

1 hour ago, Jimbo2014 said:

Im dreading November to February again, the whole of Asia gets blanketed in a thick smog owing to open burning of agricultural fields.

Not the whole of Asia, just Thailand.

I took a trip to Saigon, then Phnom Penh to escape it and they were totally clear.

Flying back into Bangkok, it was as if there was a yellow blanket across the country from BKK to CNX.

A) Its the hot season for mainland SEA, north of the Thai/Malay/Singapore peninsula. And its February to May, FYI.

 

You caught a lucky break BM2 as I have seen Haze/Smoke in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. You can make the argument it is worse in Thailand, but it's just an argument.

BTW you can pull up old photos of the French & US troops in Vietnam wars I and II and during inland dry season operations, yep there is the smoke/smog. Lots of people likely think it is bombing, or burning from war, and in some pictures it is, but in many others, nothing but hot season haze/smoke. No mistaking it. And accounts of both wars mention this weather phenomenon.

[BritManToo]

1 hour ago, Pilotman said:

What is not helping is employing many third rate western English teachers,

Filipinos are more of a problem and there are more of them around.

What really isn't helping is the heads of the schools skimming half the budget for everything and selling teachers jobs to the highest bidders and the girlfriends of local officials.

[thaiboss]

try to find a clean beach and sea south to bangkok and north hua hin etc ..  where do you have a clean  beach with a clean sea water ? i tell you there is no more clean place to swim safely

[Jimbo2014]

2 hours ago, LomSak27 said:

A) Its the hot season for mainland SEA, north of the Thai/Malay/Singapore peninsula. And its February to May, FYI.

 

You caught a lucky break BM2 as I have seen Haze/Smoke in Cambodia, Laos and Myanmar. You can make the argument it is worse in Thailand, but it's just an argument.

BTW you can pull up old photos of the French & US troops in Vietnam wars I and II and during inland dry season operations, yep there is the smoke/smog. Lots of people likely think it is bombing, or burning from war, and in some pictures it is, but in many others, nothing but hot season haze/smoke. No mistaking it. And accounts of both wars mention this weather phenomenon.

It's the scale of it now.  It's gone into mass production right across Asia.  Last jan, Feb most of Asia was in red on the pollution index and I verified it as I travelled laos, Myanmar, thailand and cambodia in rural areas.  Seemed worst jan to start march last year. Over 1 million cars added to the roads 2018 as the dictator made it easier to load up on diesel.   Cremations within bkk and unregulated factories.  Plastic has now hit critical mass too.  We no longer beach holiday in thailand unless it's very remote.  Too disappointing.

[Felt 35]

Is all of Thailand polluted now?

YES

[Jai Dee]

Not sure why this topic is in the Photography Forum as there is only one member who has made a photographic contribution.

 

I think I'll move it to the Expat Life Forum.

 

/Moved.

[BoganInParasite]

Nan (where I live), Phayao and Phrae provinces seem far less polluted than elsewhere in Thailand. Nan in particular is tidy and there is much much less rubbish lying about the place and discarded by the roadside. I noticed this almost immediately on entering the province and Nan city the first time several years ago. However, I would still be concerned with agriculture chemical run-off.

[singking]

Virtually all of Thailand's issues can be laid at the door of a very poor education system, right from the early years education, or lack of it, to the abysmal University and post graduate system.  Education  is the key to the development of a modern society and this society is broken, maybe terminally so.  What is not helping is employing many third rate western English teachers, many of them not native English speakers, who seem to be here for an easy life, rather than a love of, or expertise in teaching. Such people compound an already poor level of education. 

Sounds like America


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[ChipButty]

Stop complaining go and take a look at Mumbai 

[seajae]

too often you see thais just tossing their rubbish from their bikes/cars while driving along, when I go to the local port I see them pull up to fish, bags of household rubbish are thrown into the water on the inside of the pier and they then start fishing on the other side. It appears thais have no respect for their country, when there are bins around they still just drop their rubbish on the ground, way past time people were fined for doing it but again that would require the police to do their job and we all know that will never happen

[Onrai]

All Asian countries are not equally polluted. Go to Otres Beach in Cambodia to see paradise turned into a cesspool. Thailand, in my view, is the cleanest country in Southeast Asia. I rarely see people littering and the streets are swept clean every morning. I mean they even have shoes  to put in when you enter the bathroom so you don’t use your street shoes to get the bathroom floors dirty. The rivers are muddy but how they compare to any other agricultural country with pesticide and herbicide run off is anyone’s guess. Where agriculture is done on an industrial scale, like the USA, there is definitely more soil pollution. The most pristine beach I have ever seen is in Thailand. It is getting polluted, as is every country that uses plastic bottles and chemical herbicides and pesticides. Go to India if you want to experience filth. Cow excrement with trash fill every street. Or go to San Francisco Ca and see the filth left by the huge homeless population and the graffiti marring the buildings, the buses, the subways. Or go to Tibet and see the mountains if rubbish Chinese tourists throw from their buses on the way to Mt Everest. 

[uhuh]

9 hours ago, DUNROAMIN said:

All Asians countries are the same, they do not care about the environment, 

Japan?

Taiwan?

Hong Kong?

Bhutan?

Malaysia? 

Singapore? 

 

[4675636b596f75]

13 hours ago, BritManToo said:

I took a trip to Saigon, then Phnom Penh to escape it and they were totally clear.

Da Nang Vietnam was so clean, the streets are clean too.

[4675636b596f75]

7 hours ago, ChipButty said:

Stop complaining go and take a look at Mumbai

I see, Sally's husband only beats her a bit, so she has only one black eye, but Betty's husband (Mumbai) is a real horror, he likes to blacken both her eyes.  Great logic.