For the millions of sun seekers who head to
Thailand’s resort island of Phuket each year in search of stunning beaches and clear waters, cutting down on waste may not be a top priority.
hoping to change that with a series of initiatives aimed at reducing the
use of plastic, tackling the garbage that washes up on its shores, and
educating staff, local communities and tourists alike.
plastics,” said Anthony Lark, president of the Phuket Hotels Association
and managing director of the Trisara resort.
make a change, it’s going to get worse and worse,” he told the Thomson
Reuters Foundation.
Phuket’s five-star hotels – the association has put tackling
environmental issues high on its to-do list.
to phase out, or put plans in place to stop using plastic water bottles
and plastic drinking straws by 2019.
dump into landfill about 250,000 plastic water bottles annually. It has
now switched to reusable glass bottles.
“A Plastic Ocean”, and now show an edited version with Thai subtitles
for staff training.
action, rather than just hotel general managers getting together for a
drink,” Lark said.
become a top holiday destination in Southeast Asia – and faces similar
challenges.
Southeast Asia, Phuket is easily accessible to tourists from China,
India, Malaysia and Australia.
about 10 million visitors each year, media reports say, helping make the
Thai tourism industry one of the few bright spots in an otherwise
lacklustre economy.
Southeast Asian resorts – must contend with traffic congestion, poor
water management and patchy waste collection services.
follow Phuket’s lead and step up action to cut their dependence on
plastics, said Susan Ruffo, a managing director at the U.S.-based
non-profit group Ocean Conservancy.
dumped in the ocean every year, killing marine life and entering the
human food chain, UN Environment says.
Thailand – account for up to 60 percent of plastic waste leaking into
the seas, an Ocean Conservancy study found.
lot to gain by making efforts to control their own waste and helping
their guests do the same,” Ruffo said.
but there is a lot more to be done, particularly in the area of
ensuring that hotel waste is properly collected and recycled,” she
added.
industry is hard to find. But packaging accounts for up to 40 percent of
an establishment’s waste stream, according to a 2011 study by The
Travel Foundation, a UK-based charity.
water and energy, said Von Hernandez, global coordinator at the “Break
Free From Plastic” movement in Manila.
morning to get rid of plastic, but then they either dig a hole, and bury
it or burn it on the beach,” said Ruffo. “Those are not effective
solutions, and can lead to other issues.”
stations, giving guests metal or bamboo drinking straws and bamboo
toothbrushes, and replacing single-use soap and shampoo containers with
refillable dispensers, experts said.
could give them savings,” said Hernandez. “It could help change mindsets
of people, so that when they go back to their usual lives, they have a
little bit of education.”
plastic waste further, and will host its first regional forum on
environmental awareness next month.
can be implemented at other Southeast Asian resorts and across the wider
community.
about recycling or reusing, it’s going to make a big difference,” said
Lark.