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

The one issue of plastic waste segregation is the mixed types of plastics in one product e.g.,
mixed of PMMA and PC in TV products, mixed of PET and fiber glass for automobile
parts (Field observation, 2013). The one method to promote plastic waste separation is that
seven plastic codes should be labeled on plastic products at the plastic manufacturing
before sales because these codes make the plastic wastes separation be easy for consumers.
Waste shops have knowledge on plastic waste separation, and some even shops train the
interest people and businessman to practice and improve the sorting skills of interest shops.
The most important issue affect the percentage of recycling rate is the prices and markets
of recycled materials. Some businessmen state that the recycling business is the risk
business because the prices of recycled materials are not steady depending on the demand
of plastic factories and prices of plastic wastes from waste shops. For example, PET scraps
can be sold for 25-30 Baht/kg in the winter because the textile factories in China use PET
scraps to produce the sweaters, whereas the price of PET waste is 15-20 Baht/kg in
summer (Field observation, 2013). The prices of recycled materials are set by considering
the quality of recycled pellets (e.g., Grade A and B) and colors of recycled pellets (e.g.,
black, white, red, blue, green, yellow, and clear). Therefore, the government should
establish the middle prices of recycled materials by set the center of recycled material
control to control the quality and prices of recycled products.
From Figure 4.29, the new flow of plastic wastes was set by considering the amount of
municipal plastic waste combustion at the industrial incineration. The amount of municipal
waste for industrial incineration is from the RDF production of integrated solid waste
management plants in municipalities (PCD, 2012). RDF can be used as alternative fuels in
the power plant of municipalities, or it is sold to the industry e.g., food industry, paper
industry and cement kiln. Approximately 5% combustion rate of thermosetting and
thermoplastic wastes will be burnt in the industrial incineration. The assumption is 20%
municipal plastic wastes will be burnt in the other industries excluding the cement kiln.
This scenario did not focus on the energy recovery from plastic wastes. Thus amounts
plastic wastes for municipal incineration, industrial incineration (cement factories) and oil
recovery will be assumed a slight increase. The percentage of municipal incineration in
2016 is still the same as in 2010 (2%), while the amounts of fresh wastes and landfilled for
oil recovery will be 7,300 and 15,330 tonnes respectively. Likewise, the amount of
landfilled wastes for burning in cement kiln will be 42,500 tonnes in 2016.
The promotion of waste recycling scheme will the amount of exported wastes increases,
but the amount of imported wastes will steady in 2016. The assumption is 15% of
municipal plastic wastes will be exported to other countries. Plastic wastes are exported by
middle dealers and waste shops. Chinese dealers sometimes come and buy plastic wastes
by themselves because they have knowledge and skills to sort the different types of plastic
wastes (Field observation, 2013). Imported plastic wastes should be banned because there
are large amounts of plastic waste generation in Thailand which are not recycling. Due to
difficulty of plastic waste segregation, people only separate the favorite three types of
plastic wastes such as PET, HDPE, and mixed plastic wastes. Thus, the best practice of
plastic waste separation and collection is important to increase the material recycling of
plastic wastes.
Before disposal, 10% of industrial wastes and 10% of municipal plastic wastes will be
separated and reused in the manufacturing and consumption processes. Approximately 1%
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