Plastic Bags

During my first few weeks here, plastic bags began to take over my life. No matter what my daily activity I always seemed to accumulate at least one or two plastic bags. I had assigned them to a small corner of one drawer in my kitchen to store for re-use as bin bags. They were sharing the drawer with my glass measuring cups, cheese grater, and kitchen towels (I know, it's a strange drawer). In less than a week they completely took over the drawer. I still can't see my cheese grater, though I know it is back there somewhere, waiting for its Bangkok debut.

Every time I opened the drawer I was racked with guilt. I would imagine the bag suffocating some sea turtle, clogging street drains during the rainy season, or outliving me in some landfill. The worst part being, that the bag wasn't even of much utility to me in the first place. Take for example this cup of coffee I bought. In this case the bag was actually a hindrance to me. I beg you, if you have been given something more ridiculous in a plastic bag, please send the me the photo. I might start an album.

It was shortly after I received this cup of coffee that I put my proverbial foot down. No more plastic bags.

How to avoid getting them. Step one was learning how to say that I don't want one in Thai. These two phrases have served me well.

• mâi ow tŭng / (I) don't want bag
  

• mee tŭng láa-ow / (I) have bag already

I find it doesn't matter if I don't get the tones just right. I just hold up my canvas bag and smile. The response is almost always enthusiastic and positive. At least two shopkeepers have grinned widely and responded "save the earth!"

I brought my bags with me from the US and take one with me everywhere I go - discreetly folded in the bottom of my purse. Now that I'm paying attention though, I see that reusable bags are for sale literally everywhere in Bangkok. I've seen them at Chatuchak, the Jim Thompson store, Siam Center, and at my neighborhood street market.

Why care? For one thing, they are an eyesore. Plastic bags litter both the sidewalks and the waterways in my neighborhood. And since the bags can take as many as 1,000 years to break down, they are going to be there for a while. 1,000 years seems like a really long time when I consider that I probably only used the bag for 5 to 60 minutes - 1 week if I reused it as a bin liner. If you consider the resources that go into creating and distributing plastic bags - both the energy used and the pollution created - the picture gets bleaker still.

In September of 2007, the Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) began a campaign to promote the use of cloth bags. According to their studies 21% of the garbage in Bangkok is made up of plastic bags (other estimates put the figure at 15%)!! The BMA said that by cutting plastic bag consumption, greenhouse gas emissions could be cut by up to 1 million tons/year and garbage collection costs could be reduced by 650 million baht/year.

What to do if you do get them. Despite all of my best intentions, it does occasionally happen that a bag sneaks up on me. So what then?

At the very very least, I try to reuse them. In our home plastic shopping bags usually make encore appearances as bin liners and leftover containers. We also use them when we travel to wrap up our shoes before packing them with clean clothes. I've also used them as packing material. Still when I'm completely done with the bag... it ends up in the bin. My apartment building doesn't have recycling bins but my apartment manager assures me that the recyclables are separated. According to most of the literature I've read, he's right.

In Bangkok, and throughout Southeast Asia, recyclables are recovered by both official garbage collectors and so called "pickers" - individuals who pick out and sell recyclables for income. Sounds great right? Chuck everything into one bin and let someone else make a living out of sorting it out. Unfortunately there are some drawbacks. "Pickers" - many of whom are children - are exposing themselves to health risks by working in unsanitary conditions. And because recycling is market-driven rather than mandatory, not everything that could be recycled is getting recycled.

Want to be sure your bags get recycled? You could take them to a recycler yourself. In January BK Magazine's Mr. Know-It-All provided a list of places to drop of recyclables.

Unfortunately recycling the plastic bags also consumes energy and produces waste so the much better solution is to avoid getting those bags in the first place.

Sources:

1. Thailand Joins World Community in Reduction of Greenhouse Gas Emissions, Thai Government Public Relations Department (Sep. 3, 2007).
2. Plastic Shopping Bags in Australia, National Plastic Bags Working Group Report to the National Packaging Covenant Council (Dec. 6, 2002).
3. State of Waste Management in South East Asia, United Nations Environment Programme (2004).
4. 3R Practice in East and South-East Asia, Waste Management World (Sep. 2007).
5. Waste Reduction, Reuse and Recycling, Thailand Environment Monitor (2003).
6. The Curse of Plastic Bags, Bangkok Post (Feb. 26, 2008).
   

Thai Green Label

I've spent two months in Bangkok and today, while continuing my search for "green" housing developments in Bangkok, I came across the Thai Green Label for the first time. Not on a product, but on a website.

What is it? The Thai Green Label has been around since 1994 and is a project of the Thailand Environment Institute (TEI). The label is awarded to products "that are shown to have minimum detrimental impact on the environment in comparison with other products serving the same function." Awesome. So how come I haven't seen it anywhere?

It seems that the labeling scheme applies to products and services, excluding food, drinks, and pharmaceuticals. The fact that, so far, I have been almost exclusively a consumer of food and drinks, may explain why the label doesn't look familiar to me. Also, the labeling scheme is voluntary, which may explain why after nearly 13 years there are only 163 products and 32 companies that have been awarded the green label.

How does it work? Like other labeling schemes, the process begins with a company making an application to carry the label. In this case that application is made to TEI. Once TEI has confirmed that its criteria are met, the company is awarded a contract. The contract allows the company to use the green label, for a fee, for a certain period of time.

TEI does not list its criteria on its website, but it does list its guiding principals including:

• considering the entire life cycle of a product's environmental impact;
• issues of "high political priority" such as waste reduction, energy efficiency, and water conservation; and
• whether the criteria can be met with reasonable modifications or improvements.

Why do I care? At their best, labels allow an uninformed consumer to make the kinds of choices they want to make - and dare I say would make - if they had the time, energy, and know-how to get the information on their own. It's social responsibility made easy.

Only want to fill your fruit bowl with locally grown mangoes? You don't have to know the names of all the local farms or even when mangoes are in season (incidentally they are in season from April-September) you just have to check the label. Don't eat meat, but aren't sure if that mushroom bouillon is all mushroom? Check the list of ingredients. And where would we be without those nutritional labels? Telling us tales of calories, fiber, and iron?

Eco-labels take this good thing to a whole new level. Not just telling us where a product came from, what it's made of, or what its 'specs' are, but breaking it down to the end question - "is it environmentally responsible for me to buy this?"

At their worst, however, labels can be misleading and a party to some of the worst forms of greenwashing. So it's important to know your labels and know what they mean.

Fortunately there are several websites that provide a searchable database of labels. Such as Ecolabelling.org and Consumer Reports' Eco-Labels Center. These websites explain what the label means and who hands the label out. The label's own website can also shed light on the matter.

So next time you're in the market for a refrigerator, a dry cleaner, shampoo, or a printer... keep an eye out for the Thai Green Label. And please, let me know what you find.

For a list of products and companies that have been awarded the Thai Green Label check out http://www.tei.or.th/greenlabel/.

Sources:

1. Thailand Environmental Institute, Thai Green Label Scheme Website
2. Ecolabeling.org
3. About.com, Asian Fruit - Seasonal Availability, Rhonda Parkinson