We know the size of the mighty Thai garbage river, now let's turn off the taps
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Re: "50m tonnes of Thai garbage flows into sea every year", National, June 9.
At last, the disgraceful state of Thailand’s waterways, seas and beaches – apparent to everyone for so long – has been quantified. It is only a shame that it made just a few paragraphs in your “Quick News” section, and did not receive more prominence.
The World Wide Fund for Nature points out that “every dollar put into marine protection would win triple that in benefits from employment, coastal protection and fisheries”.
Thailand must now take vigorous action, which is long overdue, against those who indiscriminately dispose of garbage, including ships that dump large quantities of rubbish overboard as they steam up and down the Gulf of Thailand.
Amid a lack of hostile maritime threats to Thai sovereignty, the Royal Thai Navy could take on a valuable “nation-building” task by deploying “garbage watch” patrols to apprehend and bring to justice the masters of ships caught polluting our seas.
To tackle the many other causes of this pollution, we need a massive education campaign, starting in primary schools, and much tighter controls on the use of plastic bags and polystyrene packaging in supermarkets.
David Brown
Rayong
