BANGKOK, Nov 14 — Thailand’s Department of Environmental Quality Promotion (DEQP) said that last year, each Thai produced 1 kilogram of waste per day, indicating that there is an urgent need to solve the problem and reduce the loss of natural resources and effects on the environment.
The department said that total waste production in Thailand last year was about 26 million tonnes, 64 per cent of which was food waste
During a seminar on solving waste disposal problems held in Bangkok, DEQP Deputy Director General Sakol Tinagul said Thailand is facing an increase in waste every year.
In 2013, 26 million tonnes of waste were produced in the country, meaning each Thai person was producing 1 kilogram of waste daily.
Of the total, 3 per cent was hazardous waste, 30 per cent was recycled waste, while 64 per cent was organic or food waste, considered quite high, as waste could only be destroyed at a 70 per cent rate, leaving leftover waste to cause methane gas leading to the greenhouse effect affecting the environment as a whole.
The environmental official said that as the private sector has pushed the problem of waste management to become a national agenda item, the sector has developed continually and with high efficiency.
Thailand is currently able initiate a complete waste management process that could destroy more waste, while being environmentally friendly.
Meanwhile, United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) representative Rosa Esrore said the world faces a food waste crisis, with some 1.3 billion tonnes or about Bt32 trillion worth of food is just thrown away every year.
The waste of this amount of food could feed an entire nation having insufficient food, said the UN official.
