The shocking truth behind Samui’s garbage disposal crisis

[louse1953]

We can all joke about the crackdowns and admittedly many have had minimal effect. I do have a good deal of sympathy for the current government. Think we can all agree that little to nothing has been done for years so all the same old problems fester. It would take any government decades to sort out the mess and see it moving forward sensibly. The current government does not have decades at their disposal. The current government at least wants to take action on some of the issues and get them fixed. The problem is that they are trying to fix everything (OK many things) at once. This is leading to a lack of focus which results in things not getting resolved. The morons running the government in my home country would never be able to cope with even 10% of the problems Thailand has. They only appear competent because they are blessed by the fact that they inherited the governance of a country where things were built step by step for the the good of the people over hundreds of years. Maybe we should cut the current government some slack. Applaud them for trying to take action. While praying they take the long view and address the source of the issues we see today.

This is why i promote they stay around for 5-10 years,it will take that long to weed out all the corruption,and put fresh people in,not recycled family members.

[Lupatria]

Proposal for a TAT campaign to boost local tourism:

“Whatever you are looking for - at Samui’s Beaches you’ll find it”

[bander]

Sweep the garbage under the carpet like Thais always do.

[sean in udon]

It's the same old story all over Thailand. They love to talk about what's wrong, point the finger of blame at other authorities, but nothing ever gets done. Samui, like Phuket which has turned into a toxic cesspit, will continue down this road as long as the good old MONEY keeps rolling in from tourism.

I've traveled the world but few places compare to Thailand as being nothing short of a garbage dump. Look at the mentality ... I've seen Thais stand not a foot from a trash can and yet the prefer to throw their garbage on the ground.

In my days on Phuket it was nothing unusual to see rats crawling all over the place, especially in restaurants in the Town.

I would say that they ought to be ashamed of themselves but you can't shame the ignorant and uneducated. Take a walk anywhere in Thailand and there are dogs shitting, people throwing garbage on the floor, rats running around restaurant tables ... any they have the audacity to call Thailand a high class tourist destination ... it's cleaner in my toilet and by a remarkably long way.

It's a shame and another reason I left ... I just didn't consider living in a shit hole as a nice place to live but I guess there are some that like it that way.

One of the things that used to hack me off about the UK was seeing people chuck litter on the ground. I've seen plenty of people walk out of a local general store with their purchase, open and chuck the wrapper on the floor. There's a bin right in front of them.

Imo, ignorance is one of the UK's biggest areas of growth.

Agree that it's a problem in Thailand as well, but where can you completely escape from ignorance?

[Traveling Sailor]

You forgot to mention that they would rather piss up against a coconut tree than to walk 10 meters to a toilet !

From what pathetic cultural test tube did you arise where men would think to walk 10 meters to some smelly loo rather than stand behind a convenient tree for a piss?

The tree isnt necessary from what I see by me, just whip it out and anyplace will do even seen it at gas stations right next to the bog..............funny never see the women do it though?

Well actually , I saw a woman recently walking along a main road , who just stopped, pulled up her dress ( no Knickers) and just squatted there and then , luckily I did not see if she did number 1 or 2 , as I was driving by. I think she was actually a bit Maow or Simple looking at her manner etc

Are you sure it was not a Chinese tourist? The behavior you discribe is SOP in much of mainland China. I speak from personal experience.

[maidee]

thai style of governance ?

mai pen rai, nobody cares ?

maybe an accidental fire might take place and the problem is solved, thai style ?

[Water Buffalo]

Ladies and gentlemen, the problem is plastic.

If we were an intelligent life-form, we would be using something biodegradable.

I don't think I will see it in my lifetime though.

Though, Samui does seem to be a good place to dump trash.

[samuibruno]

It's the same old story all over Thailand. They love to talk about what's wrong, point the finger of blame at other authorities, but nothing ever gets done. Samui, like Phuket which has turned into a toxic cesspit, will continue down this road as long as the good old MONEY keeps rolling in from tourism.

I've traveled the world but few places compare to Thailand as being nothing short of a garbage dump. Look at the mentality ... I've seen Thais stand not a foot from a trash can and yet the prefer to throw their garbage on the ground.

In my days on Phuket it was nothing unusual to see rats crawling all over the place, especially in restaurants in the Town.

I would say that they ought to be ashamed of themselves but you can't shame the ignorant and uneducated. Take a walk anywhere in Thailand and there are dogs shitting, people throwing garbage on the floor, rats running around restaurant tables ... any they have the audacity to call Thailand a high class tourist destination ... it's cleaner in my toilet and by a remarkably long way.

It's a shame and another reason I left ... I just didn't consider living in a shit hole as a nice place to live but I guess there are some that like it that way.

One of the things that used to hack me off about the UK was seeing people chuck litter on the ground. I've seen plenty of people walk out of a local general store with their purchase, open and chuck the wrapper on the floor. There's a bin right in front of them.

Imo, ignorance is one of the UK's biggest areas of growth.

Agree that it's a problem in Thailand as well, but where can you completely escape from ignorance?

havent you heard the saying

ignorance is bliss

uk is starting to follow thailand and on thier way to become happy

most thais are very blissfull

[Stray]

We can all joke about the crackdowns and admittedly many have had minimal effect. I do have a good deal of sympathy for the current government. Think we can all agree that little to nothing has been done for years so all the same old problems fester. It would take any government decades to sort out the mess and see it moving forward sensibly. The current government does not have decades at their disposal. The current government at least wants to take action on some of the issues and get them fixed. The problem is that they are trying to fix everything (OK many things) at once. This is leading to a lack of focus which results in things not getting resolved. The morons running the government in my home country would never be able to cope with even 10% of the problems Thailand has. They only appear competent because they are blessed by the fact that they inherited the governance of a country where things were built step by step for the the good of the people over hundreds of years. Maybe we should cut the current government some slack. Applaud them for trying to take action. While praying they take the long view and address the source of the issues we see today.

Stick around for a few more coups and you'll be reading the same words, that you've just written, about the general that will be in charge, at that time.

[nalgab]

Napalm the island? That will incinerate everything very quickly!

Oh, have the people leave first.

I really wonder how people like yourself are allowed to use this site

[The Deerhunter]

Mai Ben Rai......give it some more years......decades.....till the whole of samui is covered by rubbish and then may be something will be done.

Nothing is urgent in Thailand......only the eating of som tam....................

My God, Costas. You have gone from being a little optimist to bl00$y cynic like the rest of us.

[The Deerhunter]

We can all joke about the crackdowns and admittedly many have had minimal effect. I do have a good deal of sympathy for the current government. Think we can all agree that little to nothing has been done for years so all the same old problems fester. It would take any government decades to sort out the mess and see it moving forward sensibly. The current government does not have decades at their disposal. The current government at least wants to take action on some of the issues and get them fixed. The problem is that they are trying to fix everything (OK many things) at once. This is leading to a lack of focus which results in things not getting resolved. The morons running the government in my home country would never be able to cope with even 10% of the problems Thailand has. They only appear competent because they are blessed by the fact that they inherited the governance of a country where things were built step by step for the the good of the people over hundreds of years. Maybe we should cut the current government some slack. Applaud them for trying to take action. While praying they take the long view and address the source of the issues we see today.

Stick around for a few more coups and you'll be reading the same words, that you've just written, about the general that will be in charge, at that time.

Stray, you too are being cynical. Thai coup seems to be doing a lot of good among the bad reports that seem to come with most coups. 35 million rai of forrest recovered from illegal use would seem to be a great achievement and there are many others. After yeast of rape, pillage & non-government, some good things really are starting to happen. It won't be everything you want and it won't be al at once, but it seems to me a heck of a lot more than we saw from Yingluck during her much longer tenure.

[mikiea]

True somebody already said it.No money in it for me. I can't see or smell the shit from my house

ehhh.... you reap (smell) what you soe (shit) ..... ahhhh. ..... the thainess of it all warms my heart :-)

[Sakeopete]

They will eventually hire a contractor to remove it where it will be dumped at sea then slowly was up on every shore.

[Local Drunk]

Napalm the island? That will incinerate everything very quickly!

Oh, have the people leave first.

Naw the people don't get to leave first... That way you get rid of all the garbage.

https://youtu.be/bPXVGQnJm0w

Sometimes sometimes people just post to see their words in print without thinking how ridiculous they sound - go to blazes!

Oh God! Another one that doesn't get satire... I think I should put a disclaimer on most of my posts in big red letters that says, and I will type it very very slowly so that you get it... This is satire.

[Local Drunk]

Proposal for a TAT campaign to boost local tourism:

“Whatever you are looking for - at Samui’s Beaches you’ll find it”

I'll try to dig a shot of a kid cooling off in a tidal pool filled with garbage in Hua Hin... By the way, is that pic actually from Samui?

[Local Drunk]

Not a problem.....

wait until the garbage reaches the beaches, or the stench filters into the hotels, when tourism is affected it'll all get solved in the standard 3 months !!!

Well your right about the party line of "It will be solved in three months." I can't speak for the trash dumps on the Island, but the Gulf of Thailand is so polluted that it will probably take 30 years to correct. Problem is that it would take that long just to educate the people not to use plastic bags and not to toss their garbage in The Gulf. So maybe sixty years is a more accurate estimate.

[biplanebluey]

I think proper investigation will reveal that this incinerator has been out of action for more than 5 years and the Mayor has done nothing to facilitate repairs in his tenure.

Sadly the story headlined by Samui News reads like it was written by Nation reporters and very difficult to understand 100%

I think with further investigation----- Like reading the first few posts !!!! you will find that the problem of the incinerator was first realised in 2008 at the beginning of your lovely Major's tenure so I make that 7yrs,and yes,as usual the money allotted to that maintenance has gone to other things. I do not know what the Major has got in the way of personal (expensive)toys

[ChangMaiSausage]

Ask Bangkok air to pay they have maid more money out of Samui than anyone.

Rather than flying rubbish in fly it out...

[northernphil]

Ah, Samui, The Land of Smells.

[Halion]

Thainess personified.

[sambum]

It's the same old story all over Thailand. They love to talk about what's wrong, point the finger of blame at other authorities, but nothing ever gets done. Samui, like Phuket which has turned into a toxic cesspit, will continue down this road as long as the good old MONEY keeps rolling in from tourism.

I've traveled the world but few places compare to Thailand as being nothing short of a garbage dump. Look at the mentality ... I've seen Thais stand not a foot from a trash can and yet the prefer to throw their garbage on the ground.

In my days on Phuket it was nothing unusual to see rats crawling all over the place, especially in restaurants in the Town.

I would say that they ought to be ashamed of themselves but you can't shame the ignorant and uneducated. Take a walk anywhere in Thailand and there are dogs shitting, people throwing garbage on the floor, rats running around restaurant tables ... any they have the audacity to call Thailand a high class tourist destination ... it's cleaner in my toilet and by a remarkably long way.

It's a shame and another reason I left ... I just didn't consider living in a shit hole as a nice place to live but I guess there are some that like it that way.

One of the things that used to hack me off about the UK was seeing people chuck litter on the ground. I've seen plenty of people walk out of a local general store with their purchase, open and chuck the wrapper on the floor. There's a bin right in front of them.

Imo, ignorance is one of the UK's biggest areas of growth.

Agree that it's a problem in Thailand as well, but where can you completely escape from ignorance?

I think that you will now find in most towns/cities in the UK, there are on the spot fines for doing just that (And it's official council strategy as you do get a receipt, and it doesn't become "tea money"!)

One of the main problems here is the shortage of litter bins - you can usually find one outside 711 or Family Mart, but other than that they are few and far between, and if you do find one, it's usually crammed to overflowing.

[sambum]

Napalm the island? That will incinerate everything very quickly!

Oh, have the people leave first.

Naw the people don't get to leave first... That way you get rid of all the garbage.

https://youtu.be/bPXVGQnJm0w

Sometimes sometimes people just post to see their words in print without thinking how ridiculous they sound - go to blazes!

Oh God! Another one that doesn't get satire... I think I should put a disclaimer on most of my posts in big red letters that says, and I will type it very very slowly so that you get it... This is satire.

What a good idea! At least then myself, and one or two other sensitive souls might know when you are "taking the p**s" when you are referring to something which for some of us is a very serious health hazard. Oh, and by the way "Oh,God" Napalm - Go to blazes - I typed that very, very slowly!

[manhood]

The whole Thailand slwoly turns more and more into a garbage place as you can see dumping of garbage everywhere as there is not strenght in controling the waste problems of the country...

its the best close the eyse and wait the garbage is floating away into the sea....

tourists love the islands and coast line covered up with waste...that makes Thailand is tourist destination again NO 1....heheh they always only want to be number one in any thing

They are the looser NO 1 in compatition to the other ASIAN countries!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

[sambum]

In reply to Local Drunk's post #75:-

Oh God! Another one that doesn't get satire... I think I should put a disclaimer on most of my posts in big red letters that says, and I will type it very very slowly so that you get it... This is satire.

I think you might not get away with your big red letters! According to the Forum Rules :-

"Forum Netiquette

1. Please do not post in all capital letters, bold, unusual fonts, sizes or colors. It can be difficult to read."

Oh, sorry, you just have!

[Lupatria]

Proposal for a TAT campaign to boost local tourism:

“Whatever you are looking for - at Samui’s Beaches you’ll find it”

I'll try to dig a shot of a kid cooling off in a tidal pool filled with garbage in Hua Hin... By the way, is that pic actually from Samui?

It's from a dump yard near Bangkok

[Truroboy]

So the deadline from above has passed and still the big mound of rubbish is at the bottom of Soi7 not withstanding the rest of the rotting crap thought Bankak

No Orange trucks have I seen in the area so what to do

Having said all the above I do think this Mayor is a sound guy but he needs to mobilise people NOW otherwise the cash cow of tourism revenue will be for sure at risk

The other day I did see a skip ( yes ) a big one , this and more is needed qiuck time before we all go down with some sort of plague

Rats rule and not just the humans sort on this Island

Sort it out NOW

[Tropicalevo]

So the deadline from above has passed and still the big mound of rubbish is at the bottom of Soi7 not withstanding the rest of the rotting crap thought Bankak

No Orange trucks have I seen in the area so what to do

Having said all the above I do think this Mayor is a sound guy but he needs to mobilise people NOW otherwise the cash cow of tourism revenue will be for sure at risk

The other day I did see a skip ( yes ) a big one , this and more is needed qiuck time before we all go down with some sort of plague

Rats rule and not just the humans sort on this Island

Sort it out NOW

I agree with your comments but it is so easy for posters to blame the government for this fiasco. A lot of the problem is lack of education on the part of residents.

Yes - the 'dump' at the end of Soi 7 is a problem (as well as the one on the hill towards Choengmon, just before Tongsai Bay. These are just illegal fly tipping. Sadly some of my neighbours (in much bigger houses than mine) are some of the culprits here. They will happily pay 20 million baht and upwards for a house but not the money to sign up and pay for garbage collection.

These two dumping sites have never been on the government route. There was a private company that used to collect from the Soi 7 site - but that seems to have stopped. The site on the hill near Tongsai Bay is just a lazy builder dumping a couple of truck loads of rubble on the side of the road. Now others are dumping stuff there as well.

The next problem is garden and building rubbish. The government have always said that they will not collect these. It is up to the individuals to dispose of these correctly - in land-fill sites. There was a lot of garden rubbish (20 or so bags) dumped opposite Grandma's place for weeks (near the corner by Big Buddha). This was finally removed yesterday by a gang of workers and a very large open backed tipper lorry. (Not a garbage truck.) The dumping of garden rubbish and rubble in the government collection areas was cited as one of the reasons that the incinerator plant broke down in the first place but of course the 'Samui Slammers' will never accept that this could be so.

The 'green bin' sites that I use (and pay for) are still being cleared regularly.

[evadgib]

The current Mayor has done more during his tenure than all the others combined. I don't know how he'll resolve this particular issue but it would help if the entire population could be educated into seperating their rubbish as is common practice elsewhere so that a fair percentage could be used again. If the recycling aspect is taken seriously the prison would operate at nil cost to the Govt & might even catch on nationwide.

[notmyself]

The dumping of garden rubbish and rubble in the government collection areas was cited as one of the reasons that the incinerator plant broke down in the first place but of course the 'Samui Slammers' will never accept that this could be so.

Would you be ever so kind and explain because it does not make sense to me.

Anyway.... additional information though I think some of the dates are incorrect. http://www.globalislands.net/userfiles/thailand_3.pdf