Thailand Announces a Complete Ban on Plastic Waste imports in 2025

(CTN News) – Thailand has announced a total import ban on Plastic Waste beginning January 1, 2025, a huge step in reducing plastic pollution.

The Thai Cabinet’s decision, which was taken today, is a part of the nation’s continued attempts to address the growing issue of Plastic Waste, which is endangering human health and contributing to environmental deterioration.

The 14 recycling facilities in the tax-free zone are also restricted from importing more garbage than their total annual output capacity of 372,994 tonnes.

The quantity of Plastic Waste imported for these facilities will be halved by 2024, corresponding to their total output capability.

To import Plastic Waste into regions outside the tax-free zone, importers must prove there is a lack of supply to fulfill their manufacturing requirements.

According to Bloomberg, imported Plastic Waste cannot be cleaned before being used as a raw material in manufacturing.

According to Deputy Government Spokesman Tipanan Sirichana, the goal of the stringent guidelines and ultimate ban on importing plastic garbage is to preserve the environment and reduce pollution to protect public health.

In recent years, Thailand has been among the nations that have struggled the most with Plastic Waste.

According to the Thailand Development Research Institute (TDRI), over half of Thailand’s annual average 1.03 tonnes of improperly handled garbage (0.31%) spills into the ocean.

Last week, a brand-new graphic demonstrated how Thailand is among the top 10 countries in the world for plastic ocean pollution due to improper trash management.

The image displays a pie chart of plastic garbage with the metric tonnage of ocean plastic waste for each nation listed. The ocean encircles the waist circle.

The government has been putting policies into place to lessen the use of plastic and boost recycling, such as prohibiting single-use plastics in certain places and conducting campaigns to promote the use of cloth bags and reusable containers.

The usage of plastic bags in Thailand has decreased by more than 148,000 tonnes in a little over three years, according to a study from last week.

Along with the Environmental Quality Promotion Department, the Pollution Control Department (PCD) began initiatives in 2018 to reduce plastic shopping bags and single-use plastic (EQPD) use.

The campaigns to reduce plastic bag use are being carried out under the roadmap from 2018 to 2030 with two major goals: replacing plastic bags with environmentally friendly containers and reducing plastic waste by 100% by 2027, according to Pollution Control Department (PCD) director-general Pinsak Suraswadi.

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