Clean up Thailand day .

Post by **trubrit** » June 24, 2011, 10:05 am

Monday the 26th June has been designated by His Majesty an individual a special day for all to do their bit to make Thailand a better place to live for everyone. As part of that project we in Non Wau Sor have been working as a community with schools , police and government to highlight what we perceive to be some of the major ills. I have reported more fully on a local topic but as it is a National Day, announced it here .

anti drugs 019.jpg

Nai Amphur Non Wau Sor declaring the opening today .

Post by **merchant seaman** » June 24, 2011, 10:15 am

Thought maybe this was to get rid of all the crooked polititions

Post by **trubrit** » June 24, 2011, 10:54 am

merchant seaman wrote:Thought maybe this was to get rid of all the crooked polititions

Some of the children I worked with did come up with that idea as well , but couldn't decide where to start .

Post by **merchant seaman** » June 24, 2011, 10:57 am

chidern seem smarter then their parents. Maybe things will improve when they grow up.

Post by **Philrjones** » June 24, 2011, 1:07 pm

Yeah, we have a clean up Australia day and it works well. Wouldn't do any harm here.

Post by **Stevo** » June 24, 2011, 2:43 pm

trubrit wrote:Monday the 26th June

Next Monday is the 27th of June. As the banner pictured does not mention which day, only the date... it must mean Sunday 26th June.

Post by **trubrit** » June 24, 2011, 2:46 pm

Stevo wrote:
trubrit wrote:Monday the 26th June
Next Monday is the 27th of June. As the banner pictured does not mention which day, only the date... it must mean Sunday 26th June.

I stand corrected Sunday 26th June it is .

Post by **stargate** » June 24, 2011, 3:44 pm

from what i can read from the poster this is to be an annual event started by an individual to try and stop the use of drugs.

Post by **trubrit** » June 24, 2011, 3:50 pm

stargate wrote:from what i can read from the poster this is to be an annual event started by an individual to try and stop the use of drugs.

Perfectly correct. an individual has designated this day to be held every year. I don't know if locally we can do the same thing though . No doubt we will come up with something .

Post by **wazza** » June 26, 2011, 3:17 pm

TB

an excellent project, that actually works, good picts at the end of the day , do make some people change their littering habits.

To save reinventing the wheel, and as an OP has stated, the Australian Campaign has been a huge success.

http://www.cleanup.org.au/au/ -

The biggest challenge for Thailand, is the use of plastic bags and getting people to use their own shopping bags.

I use them at Tesco, Big C etc, they even tried to scan my bag , thinking I was buying it !

The recycling of PET Bottles, cans, cardboard etc, is done by persons regularly, unfortunately this service means that a stupid mentality or littering to occur, knowing someone else will pick it up later.

If every small village , town and city got together , it can make a change !

Post by **semperfiguy** » June 27, 2011, 9:45 am

Unfortunately, one day of merit doesn't form a habit. The following day the population will be back to sweeping all the garbage from their own yard into the street in front of their house. For some strange reason Thais don't see cleanup of streets and other public areas as their responsibility. If every family would just police the area in front of their own homes to the center of the street and the BIB would get off their lazy butts and patrol the highways and villages and ticket litterbugs and those that dump in vacant lots, the country could be cleaned up overnight. As long as there's no enforcement of littering laws, and the BIB stay focused on setting up their traps around town to extort money from motorbike riders with no helmet, Thailand is going to remain a filthy place. And whose that idiot that invented those round rubber 8 gallon trash containers built from old tires? Talk about monopolizing the market! Can't somebody come up with a better idea and a larger container that will actually "contain" the garbage until the next time the garbage truck comes around? The "garbage runneth over" is all I see when I drive through any village or walk down any sidewalk in a commercial area. Enough said!

Post by **Saboo** » June 27, 2011, 10:19 am

semperfiguy wrote: As long as there's no enforcement of littering laws, and the BIB stay focused on setting up their traps around town to extort money from motorbike riders with no helmet, Thailand is going to remain a filthy place.

If I have a problem that I will admit to its cleanliness... I am always cleaning up... and believe it or not I actually enjoy it..! I was looking forward to “clean-up Thailand day immensely”... in fact I set my alarm clock for 4am yesterday to get a really good start.... sad isn’t it...?

semperfiguy... The boys in Brown do enforce a litter law... especially in Bangkok... They are consistently on the lookout for litter louts... there have been many a story about people being fined for discarding cigarette buts or confectionary wrappers in the capital...

some guilty some not…! But that’s another story... $\:D/$

Mr. Saboo

Post by **jackspratt** » June 27, 2011, 10:43 am

Some see the tyre rubbish bins as an idiotic invention - I see them as an ingenious way of re-cycling used tyres, and thereby keeping them from littering the sidewalks.

The main problem is the bl00dy soi dogs who get into them and scatter the rubbish - far better to do away with the dogs than the bins. =D>

Post by **trubrit** » June 27, 2011, 11:00 am

jackspratt wrote:Some see the tyre rubbish bins as an idiotic invention - I see them as an ingenious way of re-cycling used tyres, and thereby keeping them from littering the sidewalks.

The main problem is the bl00dy soi dogs who get into them and scatter the rubbish - far better to do away with the dogs than the bins. =D>

We were issued with the new style plastic wheelie bins more than two years ago, completely free . All you had to do was go to Tessa Bahn and sign for it. They now charge a waste disposal fee of 20bht a month for yellow ones , domestic use, and 50 bht for green ones, commercial . They are emptied twice a week and actually washed by the dustmen about every 3 months .

bins.jpg

Outside my house . As you can see , clean and tidy . $\:D/$

Post by **jackspratt** » June 27, 2011, 11:09 am

Haven't seen any around Ban Dung, Val - maybe we have traded off bins for booze.

I will ask the Ms Spratt tonight if they are available here. I assume they are emptied by hand, rather than the compactor trucks with the automated pick-up forks.

My comment re the soi dogs stands.

Post by **wazza** » June 27, 2011, 11:14 am

This Thai project is still in its infancy I imagine and well done to those individuals and community groups that participated.

I wasnt aware of it, otherwise, I would have done something. I always see the beaches covered in bottles, and waste wrappings etc , and sadly these are all beaches frequented by expats ! Yes there is the fishing rubbish in with all that, but new PET bottles dropped by expats is NO excuse.

Changing peoples behaviour is not easy and Rome certainly wasnt built in a day, but with community comittmemnt, some rubbish will be reduced.

Perhaps next year the Expats of Udon could join forces to clean up 1 area of neglect in the Udon Province and set an example ??

Post by **jackspratt** » June 27, 2011, 11:43 am

I have started doing my bit already, wazz.

When I first moved here, every kid (not just family) moving up and down the soi would just drop rubbish, ice cream papers etc etc. Took very little time for some education and instruction for them to go back, pick up the rubbish, and put it in the bin, to get through.

They pretty much use the bin as a matter of course now.

Further, rubbish doesn't go out flying out of the car window or back of the pickup anymore - it is kept for proper disposal. That certainly initially raised some eyebrows from Ms Spratt and other passengers.

On a more general note, the original "Don't Rubbish Australia" campaign kicked off in the late 60's with the theme of "don't be a pig" - you can see the original ad (which from memory was a great success) here:

http://www.kab.org.au/files/tvc/1968_vic_pigs_csa.wmv

What would be the equivalent animal (with the association with uncleanliness) to use for such an ad in Thailand?

Post by **semperfiguy** » June 27, 2011, 11:52 am

jackspratt wrote:I have started doing my bit already, wazz.

When I first moved here, every kid (not just family) moving up and down the soi would just drop rubbish, ice cream papers etc etc. Took very little time for some education and instruction for them to go back, pick up the rubbish, and put it in the bin, to get through.

They pretty much use the bin as a matter of course now.

So jackspratt, I'm genuinely interested to know how you went about educating the neighbors. Did you just do your part to set the right example and they caught on, or did you actually confront those that were being negligent? If so, how did they receive the correction initially? Did you approach them, or did you have you wife discuss the issues with them?

Post by **wazza** » June 27, 2011, 11:56 am

Ive kwaied to think of one Jack, but cant.....'

Well done on the education issues.

Problem for some the local communities , emptying the bins on a daily basis in all the public areas, getting people to use the bins will be easier than getting them emptied by local authorities.... They will see their participation as providing the bins.

My mate opened up a small shop and internet cafe adjoining which is opposite a primary school, and I mentioned the litter issues with all the small products they sell to the kids, he put in a major rubbish bin outside and made the kids use it. Its full every day and he assumes responsibility to empty it, just his small way of improving / making changes to litter behaviour.

Post by **jackspratt** » June 27, 2011, 12:06 pm

semperfiguy wrote:
jackspratt wrote:I have started doing my bit already, wazz.

When I first moved here, every kid (not just family) moving up and down the soi would just drop rubbish, ice cream papers etc etc. Took very little time for some education and instruction for them to go back, pick up the rubbish, and put it in the bin, to get through.

They pretty much use the bin as a matter of course now.
So jackspratt, I'm genuinely interested to know how you went about educating the neighbors. Did you just do your part to set the right example and they caught on, or did you actually confront those that were being negligent? If so, how did they receive the correction initially? Did you approach them, or did you have you wife discuss the issues with them?

It was only the kids, sfg - but strangely, never see any adults drop stuff anymore, either.

If I saw them drop something (starting with family kids) I would verbally communicate my displeasure, shake my head, and then indicate to pick up, and put in the bin. There was some initial resistance, but the word got through - particularly when it was backed up by the Mrs.

Once that hurdle was overcome, I applied the technique to other (non-family) kids.

Of course, I am not always sitting on the porch, so stuff still gets dropped by passing traffic when I am not there - but it is far cleaner than it used to be.