The War on Plastics Continues.

By Gloria Jones

The Independent newspaper recently announced its results of the 2019 Underwater Photos 5 Awards and “Marine Conservation i Photographer of the Year 2019” was all awarded to Eduardo for this amazing picture of a Caretta turtle ensnared in plastic. This beautiful creature would undoubtedly have died had it not been freed by the two underwater photographers who were sailing nearby, Such images are needed to help remind society of the increasing problem of rubbish/garbage/trash but particularly plastic ending up in the sea directly affecting the marine environment.

Obviously we can all play our own small part to help this problem, by reducing our use of straws and other plastics. Last year in our Pattaya Trader “Goes Green Issue”  we urged each and every one of our readers to avoid plastic wherever possible, especially at convenience stores and recommended that everyone refuse plastic bags or buy bags for life.
Since then some of the message seems to be getting through, CP All Public Company, the sole operator of 7-Eleven stores in Thailand, announced its intention to reduce the use of single-use plastic bags at all their stores throughout the country after calculating that 102,323,402 plastic bags had been rejected or unused between 7th December 2018 to January 13th 2019. So please continue to fight the good fight!

Also in three students from Thailand’s Mahidol’s Faculty of Information and Communication Technology: Tanakitti Sachati ,”Bank”, Bundit Hou ,”Bun” and Sarayut Lawilai “Kopkap” recently won a prize in Seoul, South Korea at the Asian Conference on Campus Sustainability, for their Smart Bin Project.
As Bank explains : We all understand that recycling is a good thing, but there is no motive or platform for anyone to actually do it. It’s like eating well and exercising regularly; unless something affects you directly, you don’t do anything about it. People who recycle are either maids or people driving around in sa leng [three-wheel vehicles] buying and selling plastic in big Iots.So we created an app that gives you reward points to redeem every time you recycle.

His teammate Bun went on to say “First, you need to download the MU Recycle application on your phone and create a profile. There’s an online map to tell you where to find smart bins nearby. Once you find the bin, there’s a QR code for you to scan via the application in order to receive points. When the screen says “Ready” you can put the plastic bottle in the bin and your phone will tell you how many points you’ve just received The app should be ready next year and lets home these ingenious students get enough backing to make this great idea a reality! Certainly there are a few inventive ideas popping up like these recently seen in a food store in Chiangmai