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

From Figure 4.28, total plastic pellets consumption including imported pellets will be 5.9
million tonnes out of which 90% of this amount will be changed to plastic products in
2016. The amount of plastic products will be 4.2 million tonnes are consumed at the plastic
consumption process. The increase of plastic production will make the increase of plastic
waste generation in both of municipalities and industries. Total plastic waste generation
will be 4.8 tonnes in 2016.
The assumption of waste collection and transportation is 20% of plastic waste generation
will not be collected to treat or dispose in 2016, so these uncollected wastes will also
stocked in the environment as same as in 2010. The total stocked plastic wastes in the
environment will be 1.3 million tonnes in 2016. The most popular disposal of industrial
wastes is the energy recovery by incineration (95%), as 37% of plastic wastes will be
disposed at landfills in 2016. Assuming the same recycling rate of industrial and municipal
waste in 2016, the amount of plastic waste recycled will be 0.5 million tonnes. The
municipal and industrial incineration and oil recovery of plastic wastes will slightly
increase, so the assumption is the amounts of plastic wastes for these processes are still the
same in 2010.
4.3.1.2 Scenario 2: Increase in recycling rate by 30%
Scenario 2 presents the flows of plastics and plastic wastes based on the National
Environmental Quality Control Plan in 2012-2016 to achieve a 30% recycling rate in 2016.
This scenario was divided into two parts such as the scenario 2A based on the 3Rs law
(PCD, 2013) and the scenario 2B based on the plastic bag taxation (FPRI, 2011). The
amount of industrial and municipal waste generation in 2016 was estimated as same as the
scenario 1. Similarly, the amounts of total plastic production and plastic waste generation
are the same as the scenario 1. The details of plastic flows in the scenario 2A and 2B are
shown in Table E-7 and E-8 in Appendix E. Many percentages of plastic waste
management in each option of scenario 2A and 2B are the same, but three assumption of
percentage are different such as percentage of waste reused, landfilling, and open
environment.
For scenario 2A and scenario 2B, assuming 10% uncollected municipal wastes in 2016, the
amount of uncollected plastic waste in MSW will decrease by the reduction, reusing and
sorting at sources. On the other hands, all industrial plastic wastes will be collected to
dispose outside factories followed by the industrial waste management regulation of DIW.
The main assumption of this scenario is the increase of recycling rate to 30%, so the
amount of plastic waste recycled will be 1.34 million tonnes in 2016. Increasing the
material recycling capacity by 95% within 2016, the amount of recycled pellet production
will raise to 1.3 tonnes.
Scenario 2A: Increase in recycling rate by 30% without promoting bio-plastics
The 3Rs law forces people to reduce their wastes at sources based on the polluter pay
principle. The amount of waste generation will decrease if the government charges more
money for waste management services because nobody wants to pay more for unnecessary
things. The government can force people to separate plastic wastes before throwing plastic
wastes. Figure 4.29 illustrates the material flow of plastics in Thailand in 2016; the
scenario 2A.
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