Thai authorities recently discovered approximately 130 tons of illegal waste shipped from abroad. They have threatened to take legal action against the shipping company and vowed to return the waste to its original country.
Attapol Charoenchansa, the general director of the Department of Pollution Control, stated that the department discovered the illegal waste after being contacted by the Department of Customs to examine five containers of suspicious cargo. The containers were discovered to be filled with illegally imported household waste mixed into the paper waste shipment, accounting for one-third of the total discovered.
Investigation revealed that the shipment belongs to the Inter-Pacific Paper company, which supposedly imports waste to use as raw material in its paper roll production in Thailand. However, the shipment violated the contractual requirement that contaminated materials make up no more than 1% of the total weight.
According to the PCD director, the company will be asked to return these shipments to the origin country as well as face legal action from authorities. In addition, the department will collaborate with the Department of Foreign Trade to issue a warning letter to the company, stating clearly that the country has no policy of accepting any household waste.
Attapol stated that the department will propose to the national environment board a five-year waste management plan that includes a strategy to decrease the number of landfills by half by 2027 and completely remove them by 2037. Another plan included in the proposal is to increase the capacity of biomass power plants in the hope of increasing the use of waste as a fuel source from 6% to 50%. He estimated that by 2037, the country will have 29.9 million tons of household waste, 53.4 percent of which will be separated at home for reuse. 46.6 percent of that will be used to generate electricity.(NNT)
 |
 |
 |
