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

was presented, and the percentage of foam recycling rate has increased to 15% in 2007
(TPFRIA, 2008).
Asia Piboonwong Ltd., Co. is the pelletizing factory and plastic bag producer in Thailand.
The owner of this company stated that this business is the risk business because the prices
of recycled pellets are not stable. Due to low quality of plastic waste, the recycled pellets
are low quality and refused from the plastic producers. She has to prepare the pretreatment
process to clean plastic wastes before processing, and she has to build the waste water
treatment for washing wastewater.
In addition, she mentioned about the plastic bag banning policy that she heard about this
policy at the conference. She mentioned that it is not easy to ban 100% of plastic bag used
because this policy affects many plastic bag industries in Thailand. The largest plastic bag
producer like Thai Nam Group may become the leader to argue this policy. Other plastic
bag producers in the eastern of Thailand do not agree with this policy as same as Thai Nam
Group. In her opinion, she planned to stop this business in the next five years by sale it to
interest people because she will gain money if she sells her factories to businessmen before
this policy is adopted.
Waste collectors are the related stakeholders of this process, and they supply plastic wastes
to recycling factories. Local administration and government organizations also support
stakeholders in this process. Local administrations have to promote the recycling sector in
community and control the environmental issues from the recycling factories. Similarly,
the government organizations provide budgets and guidelines to promote the investment of
plastic recycling business, and they force the recycling sectors to follow the environmental
laws.
Waste disposal stakeholders
Local administration and government organizations operate and maintain the waste
disposal system. The local administration has a responsibility for providing waste disposal
services. The environmental organizations like MNRE and PCD provide the budgets
related laws/policies, monitoring, and waste management guidelines. The different waste
disposal methods consist of landfilling, incineration, and open dumping. These methods
are operated by municipalities.
Private sectors of this process include RDF producers and industrial incinerators. In the
integrated waste management system, the residue wastes from sorting unit are used to
produce RDF, and then it is sold to factories or use in the power plant. Industrial estates
have the industrial incineration collect and burnt industrial plastic wastes at the industrial
incineration. PCD has a responsibility to control the environmental issues from both of
integrated waste management system and industrial incineration. Finally, Ministry of
energy supports the alternative fuels from wastes by providing budgets, technology
information, and RDF production guidelines for interest municipalities and private sectors.
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