BMA launches “The First Bangkok Zero Waste Park” project, the first prototype for sustainable waste management public park in Thailand at Benchasiri Park

 It is chosen to be a pilot area because this public park passed the Good Level of the Green Office Evaluation Criteria in 2020.  It is also a public park located at the heart of the city with a large number of service users and surrounded by shops and business establishments whose owners and business operators have high potential to support the project.  

In the past few years, due to COVID-19 situation, urban activities organized by business sector as well as tourism and service sectors had been reduced and it had also resulted in the decreasing number of waste. However, the BMA continues to focus on its mission to effectively manage waste and to make waste management sustainable in order to reduce the amount of waste brought to the final disposal to be as less as possible. Therefore, the BMA has been trying to encourage and promote the role of all sectors, be it government sector, private sector, or civil society, to become aware and see the importance of waste management and separation and change the behavior to reduce and separate waste at the source in order to reuse waste as renewable resource as much as possible.  
 

The “Bangkok Zero Waste Park” project is implemented to promote behavioral change in waste separation in public areas.  It is the cooperation between the BMA and its private sector network partners to encourage and promote the project.  For example, new prototype waste containers are placed in 8 points inside Benchasiri Park so that the park service users suddenly realize and change their behavior to correctly separate and dispose waste. Signs are also installed to provide knowledge on waste management and to show the amount of waste that has already been separated in order to show the tangible result.  

Moreover, a learning center is built inside Benchasiri Park to demonstrate the real use of waste that are separated in each category.  The learning center is divided into 5 zones, namely 1. Exhibition and activity zone, 2. Recycle zone for displaying the garbage collection and recycling, 3. Organic zone displaying how to process the organic waste in various ways, 4. General waste zone showing the collection of general solid waste before sending to the disposal, and 5. Vegetable plot zone where the service users can constantly participated in the park’s activities.  

The BMA will expand the idea of this project to other public parks and areas in the future.