Joint bid to clean Thai seabed
ASIA’S first Upcycling The Ocean project - a unique global effort to clean the oceans of debris - will kick off in Thailand next month.
The joint initiative, revealed yesterday at the Sustainable Brands 2016 Bangkok, is a partnership of the Tourism Authority of Thailand and PTT Global Chemical and Ecoalf, a producer of recycled clothes and accessories from Spain.
The three-year project aims to help remove waste from the seabed in Thailand after the country has welcomed waves of tourists for decades.
TAT Governor Yuthasak Supasorn said that last year, almost 30 million foreigners travelled to Thailand, contributing about 16 per cent of gross domestic product.
Thailand ranked 35th among 141 countries in travel and tourism competitiveness last year.
Bangkok was recently recognised as the world’s top tourism destination, replacing London, according to MasterCard’s Global Destination Cities Index.
However, Bangkok is facing an increase of waste both from local and tourism-related consumption.
This year Bangkok had to deal with more than 10,000 tonnes of garbage a day, up from 8,000 tonnes in past years.
“When it comes to the environmental performance index 2016, the country was ranked 91st of 180 nations. This does not seem to be an impressive result,” he said.
TAT and PTT Global Chemical partnered with Ecoalf to start this project, which is the first initiative outside of its home country Spain.
Javier Goyeneche, founder of Ecoalf, told The Nation that TAT and PTT Global Chemical would be the strategic partners to roll out this project, which aims to engage local communities.
We want to begin with investigating the waste under the Thai seabed and then analyse and measure the quality and contamination level of trash as a part of the pre-planning process,” he said.
The company hopes to duplicate the success of the Spain project in Thailand.
“Besides TAT and PTT Global, we have to find a local industry partner with top-quality standards here in Thailand to make this project happen,” he said.
Through this partnership, Ecoalf wants to expand its Asian market. Its products are currently available only in Japan.
The company’s aim is to double sales to about 6 million euros (Bt236 million) to 6.5 million euros this year from 3 million euros last year.
For next year, the founder of Ecoalf hopes to see another doubling to 12 million euros.
