Thailand - banning products containing microbeats
On Wednesday, 17 April 2019, the Thai cabinet acknowledged the draft Roadmap for plastic waste management (2018-2030) as proposed by Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment. It is divided into two phases. The first phase focusses on reducing the use of plastic and using environmentally friendly renewable materials instead. By the end of 2019, three types of plastic must be discontinued. They include plastic bottle caps, oxo-degradable plastics and plastic microbeads.
From 1 January 2020 onward, The Ministry of Finance (MOF), Office of The Consumer Protection Board (OCPB), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and other relevant agencies will ban the production, import and selling of products containing microbeads and later on, will consider making an announcement on the prohibition of importing, producing and selling of oxo-degradable plastics under the relevant laws. By the year 2022, another four types of plastic will be discontinued. They include plastic bags with a thickness of less than 36 microns, styrofoam food containers, plastic cups, and plastic straws.
The second phase will be to recycle 100 percent of the target plastic waste by 2027. The unwanted waste will be disposed of properly. This is expected to reduce the amount of plastic waste by approximately 780,000 tons per year and save about 3.9 million baht in waste management costs per year.
