Evaluation of Plastic Waste Management in Thailand Using Material ...

PVC, and mixed plastic wastes. Furthermore, some of them collect only plastic bags from
waste bins and clean by washing and drying followed by the standards of plastic waste
from the recycling factory. They mentioned that mixed plastic bags can be sold for 10-12
Baht/kg of plastic bag wastes, while PE plastic bag wastes can be sold for up to 19 Baht/kg
of plastic bag wastes (field observation, 2013).
Some scavengers at transfer station stated that this job make them get money easier than
their own jobs (farmers). From the field observation, most scavengers at transfer station are
women and a wife of waste collection truck drivers. They are one stakeholder who helps to
reduce the amount of plastic waste before disposal. They mentioned that municipality
waste collectors separate plastic bottles, cups, and glasses to sell during waste collection at
sources. They only find the remaining plastic waste and collect to sell to waste shops. They
dislike collect plastic bag waste because it contains food and wet wastes, and it needs to
clean before sale. There is not any regulation which forces waste pickers, but waste pickers
in BMA must have the identification card and pick wastes at the established time followed
by BMA regulation. They need to joint with the supporting organization who gives money
or welfare for them, but they do not want to pay any charge followed by the regulation.
Waste shops and garbage banks are the most important stakeholders to improve the plastic
waste recycling scheme. These sectors are the business sectors that collect and send
recyclable plastic waste to recyclers directly. The amount of collected plastic waste from
these stakeholders is converted to the recycling rate of plastic wastes because all waste
generators and collectors always sell recyclable plastic wastes to waste shops and waste
banks. From the interviewing, the owners of waste shops mentioned that this is the
profitable business because it is easy to start, and it does not require knowledge and skills
on waste separation. They have to register their shops with the municipality and
environmental organization followed by municipal regulation and health hazard business
laws. They do not want to pay their money for many organizations, and they need to pay
for one time and one organization.
There are waste shop networks at Rayong and Nakhon Ratchasima province in Thailand.
The waste shops who are memberships of these networks share their experience and
problems of this business in the meeting. One member of networks likes this network
because he can apply the information from those networks to make more profits for his
waste shop. Moreover, the owners of waste shop also suggested that the government
should do the promotion of recycling scheme continuously because people and waste shops
usually follow that promotion when the government did the projects. They also stopped to
follow the project when government organizations stopped to promote those projects (Field
observation, 2013).
Recycling stakeholders
Oil recovery, pelletizing factories and Thai Plastics Foam Recycling Industries Association
(TPFRIA) are the recycling sectors of plastic waste management. Oil recovery from plastic
is the feedstock recycling to produce crude oil. This kind of business is mostly done by the
local administration by using the plastic wastes from landfills. The pelletizing factory is a
material recycling to generate recycled resins in order to supply for plastic producers.
TPFRIA is the cooperative organization of foam industry. This organization promotes the
foam recycling scheme to local administration, waste shops, and foam industry. This
organization has promoted the foam recycling since 2001 which 8% of foam recycling rate
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