space Press Releases, News Stories

By Candida Ng, IPS

Led by the environmental group Greenpeace, they were protesting the Japanese bank's proposed 5 billion baht (110 million U.S. dollar) loan to Thailand to fund the construction of two incineration plants in Bangkok, saying these would bring long-term health woes and add financial burdens to the country.

The two plants proposed for Bangkok are part of the 7.6 billion baht (170 million U.S. dollars) Solid Waste Management Project in On Nuch in the Thai capital, which the government sees as a solution for handling the growing waste problem in this city of 7 million people.

Bangkok's landfills are fast filling up with the waste its residents produce -- 8,700 tonnes a day by the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority's statistics, but Greenpeace says it is closer to 12,100 tonnes daily.

Communities outside Bangkok are also resisting the idea of hosting landfills for the capital's waste.

But activists say Thailand, which like other Asian developing countries are being lured by incineration as a way of waste disposal, should be wary of a technology that countries like Japan are supporting overseas when it is being refused in its homeland.

As Tara Buakamsri, toxics campaigner for Greenpeace South-east Asia, reasoned, ''Japan is the one country that should show concern about the dioxin problem.'' The Japanese have realised the negative impact that its 1,800 large-scale municipal waste incinerators have on the environment and human health. Tokyo has been enacting laws and taking measures to reduce dioxin emissions, but communities hosting incinerators say they no longer want them there.

Trash incinerators emit dioxins into the air, especially when plastic is burnt. Other emissions include heavy metals and furans, which along with dioxins are known carcinogens.

According to figures released by the United Nations Environment Programme in 1995, Japan emitted the largest amount of dioxins among 15 industrialised nations.

Thailand has two incineration plants at present, one in Phuket in the south and another in Samui island in Surat Thani province.

Tara also raised doubts about the feasibility of constructing the incineration plants -- and their long-term economic cost. He explained that six to eight billion yen (49-65 million dollars) was spent yearly in Japan to construct, maintain and decrease dioxin levels in incinerators there.

''Developing countries like Thailand cannot spend so much money,'' reasoned Tara.

''People around the world are now fighting against incineration because of the environmental impact and economic corruption it brings,'' he added.

In February, Bangkok Governor Samak Sundaravej said that the plan to build the incineration plants in Bangkok would be scrapped, much to the delight of environmentalists in Thailand.

About two weeks later however, Samak backpedalled on his earlier promise and announced that the incineration plants would in fact be built, activists add.

Whatever the real reason behind the erection of the incineration and wastewater treatment plants, they say the biggest loser will be the environment and the future generations, when the impact of hazardous pollutants will really be felt.

''The impact is long-term. We do not know what will happen in the future,'' Tara said.

In mid-February, a report by the U.S.-based Institute for Local Self-Reliance also recommended that Bangkok stay away from the 'dump, bury or burn' methods of disposing of urban waste.

Opponents of incineration say Asian cities should do more recycling and minimise waste production, options that also help generate jobs. Only 20 percent of Bangkok's waste is recycled by people who collect and segregate it.

Meantime, Japanese campaigners say the Japanese public should increase the pressure on Tokyo to review the projects that the government supports overseas. In recent years, the Japanese government has said its aid policy would reflect environmental and community concerns.

But although issues like dioxin levels and garbage disposal remain big in Japan, Toshiyuki Doi of the Fukuoka NGO Forum on the Asian Development Bank, which monitors the impact of Japan-funded projects, said: ''The Japanese civil society in general is very apathetic about such projects.'' Activists also timed Monday's protest with a conference on persistent organic pollutants (POPs) that began the same day in Stockholm, Sweden. There, 120 countries are discussing the phasing out of pollutants, starting with 12 of the worst POPs, which include dioxins, DDT and furans, called the 'Dirty Dozen'.