When I was strolling around this morning for different impressions apart from the regular beach days I came across a dump yard. A few boys were preparing a truck with loads of rubbish. As a training after some days of photographic absence, I did enter the premises. First a little hesitant if someone would take notice of me. But as so often in Thailand people just glimpse at you and continue with their business.

As far as I have noticed there is a value oriented approach to the trash processes. Plastic, aluminum, paper and cardboard, steel, glass and other general waste are sorted and stored. I was able to talk to the lady that runs this place. One Kilogram of plastic bottles is worth 10 THB (around 0.25 EUR), they press the bottles in units of 50 Kilograms and haul them to the ferry port. From there the load goes it’s way to Trat to a local Hub, from where the goods will be dispatched to Bangkok. What happens then stays a mystery. It is truly concerning, that even though basic principles of waste management exist, they are probably far from being effective in terms of western standards.

On the other hand it is almost impossible to skip the production process for a lot of this waste. Everything comes packed in a plastic bag. Water is usually consumed from sealed plastic bottles to prevent any germs or bacteria from entering your organism. I have the feeling that tourism plays it’s role in this game. Still we’re not in India. But burning trash on the banks of the road at night seemed to be a common practice. At least in Cambodia.