Cambodia's plastic problem

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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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The beach between Otres 1 and Occheuteal Beach. Posted 16 September 2019:


Cambodia Breaking News (Sihanoukville): For a few days now, there has been large amounts of rubbish arriving at Occheuteal beach and Preah Reach Domnak area in Sangkat 4, Sihanoukville. That trash comes from from the canal from the city into the sea, following the heavy rains a few days ago.

The authority said people threw their trash into the canal, which carried it into the sea. This issue is never stopped, even though, the authority has already tried to reeducate the population, and the cleaner team has removed many tons of trash out of the canal.

However, the environment lover team has volunteered to clean up the beach again. But they said if we do not stop throwing the trash into the canals or rivers, this issue will not go away. The trash that people are throwing into the environment should be collected every day by the trash company.
Please help each other to sort this problem out and stop thinking that it is all up to the authorities to clean up this mess.
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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20% of Garbage in Cambodia Is Plastic Waste
AKP Phnom Penh, October 07, 2019 --
By Korm Heng
Cambodia produces nearly 4 million tons of garbage annually, about 20 percent of which is plastic waste, according to a report of the Ministry of Environment.

Some 56.9 percent of the total waste are transported to the dumping ground, 20 percent are recycled, and over 20 percent are unmanageable, it added.

Phnom Penh alone generates 3,000 tons of garbage per day (17.3 percent of which is plastic waste), Preah Sihanoukville around 700 tons (34 percent plastic waste), and Siem Reap city 400 tons (20.7 percent plastic waste), pointed out the report.

"Nowadays, the Cambodian economy is growing, we are spending more and more on easy-to-use products, such as single-use plastics. In large cities, each person uses from 40 to 52 plastic bags a week,” said here yesterday Secretary of State and Spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment H.E. Neth Pheaktra at the closing ceremony of the EU’s Green Weeks campaign.
https://www.akp.gov.kh/post/detail/18179
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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Long read:
ASEAN’s intensified efforts vs. plastic pollution crucial to migratory birds’ survival
By ACB Published on October 14, 2019
· As migratory waterbirds are interconnected and interdependent to the network of wetland sites at the EAAF, regional cooperation is critical for their conservation.

· Efforts to address plastic pollution is gaining traction in the region. Plastic pollution is a serious threat to migratory birds, with one million seabirds dying from the effects of plastic every year.

· The ASEAN Member States (AMS) are engaging in regional cooperation through the signing of the Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris, and through individual AMS’ efforts in reducing single-use plastic.

· A related migratory bird conservation initiative is the ASEAN Flyway Network that facilitates regional cooperation for the conservation of waterbirds and the wetlands that support them.

Every year, 50 million waterbirds journey between their northern breeding grounds as far as Arctic Russia to their wintering grounds in Southeast Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. These birds fly through the East Asian-Australasian Flyway (EAAF), their long-established route as they travel to warmer climates after breeding in the northern regions, and back again during breeding season.

The ASEAN Region is at the heart of EAAF, and is thus significant to these waterbirds’ annual migration. As migratory waterbirds are interconnected and interdependent to the network of wetland sites at the EAAF, regional cooperation is critical for their conservation and survival.

Migratory birds are important in healthy ecosystems as they travel distances and carry seeds from one place to another, one way they link ecosystems together across the world. They are also indicators of how healthy an area’s biodiversity is. United Nations Environment Programme (UN Environment) Convention on Migratory Species data show that at-risk conservation areas for birds also have a significant number of threatened species of plants and animals.

This World Migratory Day, the ASEAN Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) highlights the importance of regional cooperation in protecting migratory birds and their habitats. With this year’s theme, “Protect Birds: Be the Solution to Plastic Pollution!”, the ACB joins the international community in the global fight against plastic pollution.

Plastic and other marine debris is an issue that transcends nations’ boundaries, as these debris move around the oceans, possibly entering other nations’ waters. UN Environment estimates that more than eight million tonnes of plastic get in the oceans each year, equal to dumping a garbage truck of plastic every minute.

Plastic pollution is a serious threat to migratory birds. One million seabirds around the world die from the effects of plastic every year. Currently, 90 per cent of seabirds have plastic in their guts, and this proportion is expected to reach 99 per cent by 2050. If this trend continues, these birds may not survive the next generations.

Regional cooperation is thus essential to address this threat. Efforts in the region to reduce plastic pollution and marine debris are gaining traction. The 10 ASEAN Member States (AMS) adopted the Bangkok Declaration on Combating Marine Debris in the ASEAN Region during the 34th ASEAN Summit held last June. In signing the Declaration, AMS’ heads of state committed to prevent and reduce marine debris using an integrated land-to-sea approach, strengthen national laws and regulations, and enhance regional and international cooperation, including on relevant policy dialogue and information sharing.

The ACB commends the AMS for taking measures to reduce single-use plastic in their respective jurisdictions prior to and after the Bangkok Declaration. Brunei Darussalam has enjoined major stores and businesses for its “No Plastic Bag Everyday Initiative,” and is now engaging small businesses and consumers.

Cambodia charges for plastic bags to encourage the switch to reusable bags*. It is now aiming to attract investments in plastic recycling businesses. Several localities in Indonesia like Bali, Banjarmasin City, Balikpapan City, and more have banned single-use plastic. Likewise, different municipalities in the Philippines, including Los Baños, home to the ACB headquarters, have taken the same action. Indonesia also imposes a plastic bag tax.
More: https://pia.gov.ph/news/articles/1028712

*Cambodia charges for plastic bags to encourage the switch to reusable bags*
This is what they say, but is this true in your experience ?
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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The plastic problem on the islands is particularly serious as much of ends up directly in the sea, suffocating marine life. Some people on Koh Rong Sanloem are trying to tackle the problem creatively.
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Tue Nov 19, 2019 4:57 pm The plastic problem on the islands is particularly serious as much of ends up directly in the sea, suffocating marine life. Some people on Koh Rong Sanloem are trying to tackle the problem creatively.
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The best chance for a "French association" to have on plastic waste is to get their fellow countrymen in plastic production facilities in France to go on strike - tackle the source, anything else sounds like hard work! #EasyTarget #ShootsScores
:stir:
Meum est propositum in taberna mori,
ut sint Guinness proxima morientis ori.
tunc cantabunt letius angelorum chori:
"Sit Deus propitius huic potatori."
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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Sea King and Mermaid, Two Attractive Features of Sea Festival 2019
AKP Phnom Penh, December 23, 2019 --
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Sea king and mermaid statues, made from plastic wastes, were two main attractive features of the Sea Festival 2019 held in Kampot province last weekend.
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The two plastic statues were created from fish scales, plastic bottles and cups, egg skins, lotus trees, sugarcane waste by Mr. Ream Mony Silong, 32, with supports from his colleagues. The two-metre-high statues were displayed during the Sea Festival from Dec. 20-22, 2019.

Regarding the waste issue, especially plastic waste, the Ministry of Environment has been encouraging the public to take part in reducing the plastic waste as much as they can as Cambodia currently produces about 10,000 tons of wastes per day or 4 million tons a year, of which 20 percent are plastic.
-AKP
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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CEOCambodiaNews wrote: Mon Dec 23, 2019 2:41 pm Sea King and Mermaid, Two Attractive Features of Sea Festival 2019
AKP Phnom Penh, December 23, 2019 --
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Sea king and mermaid statues, made from plastic wastes, were two main attractive features of the Sea Festival 2019 held in Kampot province last weekend.
Image
The two plastic statues were created from fish scales, plastic bottles and cups, egg skins, lotus trees, sugarcane waste by Mr. Ream Mony Silong, 32, with supports from his colleagues. The two-metre-high statues were displayed during the Sea Festival from Dec. 20-22, 2019.

Regarding the waste issue, especially plastic waste, the Ministry of Environment has been encouraging the public to take part in reducing the plastic waste as much as they can as Cambodia currently produces about 10,000 tons of wastes per day or 4 million tons a year, of which 20 percent are plastic.
-AKP
I don't think that's what people meant by "tackling the plastic problem"... The idea is there though. Aren't fish scales, egg shells, lotus trees and sugarcane waste biodegradable?

the Ministry of Environment has been encouraging the public to take part in reducing the plastic waste as much as they can
Well isn't that nice. Let's encourage people to reduce their reliance on plastic. How? Using which mechanism? Who is going to fund the campaign (if there's a campaign)? clean-ups? Mh?
There isn't a reliable trash collection service but let's encourage an under-educated population to wrap its mind around ideas as abstract as environmental conservation and the detrimental effects of plastic pollution.... Yea...
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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Solving Cambodia's Plastic Problem Seen as Key to Minimizing Waste
By Khan Sokummono, Tum Malis
April 21, 2020 02:11 PM

PHNOM PENH - Lang Teng and his wife Him Chan Ouen have sold vegetables for more than four decades. They own two stalls totaling four meters square in the Boeng Keng Kong market, where shoppers can get a haircut or purchase housewares on the way to buying groceries for the day’s meals.

Lang Teng opened his business in Phnom Penh not long after the murderous Khmer Rouge rule ended in 1979.

Today he remembers how shoppers arrived at the market back then, each with an empty basket. They moved from stall to stall, buying basics—vegetables, meat, fish, eggs—and tucking purchases into the baskets that always seemed to have room for another item.

Until the late 1990s, Lang Teng said vendors wrapped items in “leaves like banana leaves, [and] water hyacinth strings. Now, we don’t see that anymore.”

Today, people go to the market without baskets and return home with food wrapped in plastic carried in plastic bags. Even big blocks of ice are protected in plastic,
a big change from the traditional way of tying up ice blocks with water hyacinth strings to carry them.

Cambodians of Lang Teng’s basket-carrying generation remember routinely living a life that produced little to no waste. With a per capita income of $103, they had little disposable income and weren’t big consumers. What they had, they used until it wore out, then repurposed whatever remained. Ahead of the trend, they lived a zero-waste life.

The Zero Waste International Alliance defines it as “the conservation of all resources by means of responsible production, consumption, reuse, and recovery of products, packaging, and materials without burning and with no discharges to land, water, or air that threaten the environment or human health.”

People in Cambodia’s capital city of Phnom Penh produce about 3,000 metric tons of solid waste every day. Nearly 60 percent of municipal solid waste comes from households, followed by hotels and guesthouses (16.7%), restaurants (13.8%), markets (7.5%), to shops (5.4%) and offices (1.4%), according to a 2016-2018 study by the United Nations Environment Program.

It is overwhelming, and after food waste (63.3%), plastic is the biggest category (15.5%), followed by grass and wood (6.8%), and paper and cardboard (6.4%), according to a September 2019 overview.
Full article: https://www.voanews.com/east-asia-pacif ... zing-waste
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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4Rs Promoted to Combat Marine Plastic Litter in Cambodia
AKP Phnom Penh, November 26, 2020 --

The Embassy of Japan in Cambodia and the UN Development Programme (UNDP) signed an exchange of notes in the presence of Cambodian Minister of Environment H.E. Say Samal on the “Combatting marine plastic litter project in Cambodia”.

According to press release of the Ministry of Environment AKP received this morning, to be implemented by the Ministry of Environment, the National Council for Sustainable Development and UNDP, this project aims to prevent and minimise plastic waste pollution on land and in the oceans through promotion of a 4Rs (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, and Recycle) framework.

“Marine plastic pollution has become one of the largest environmental crises in the world. During the G20 Osaka Summit in 2019, the Government of Japan launched a new initiative to advance effective actions against marine plastic pollution,” noted by H.E. Mikami Masahiro, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to the Kingdom of Cambodia.

The surge in plastic waste has become one of the biggest challenges in today’s world. Used for bags, bottles and containers, plastic is now everywhere in our homes, schools and workplaces. But that rampant use has come at a heavy price.

The worldwide total volume of plastic has reached 8.3 billion metric tonnes. Every year, 13 million tonnes of plastic reaches the oceans, which is equivalent of a full garbage truck every minute. Around 90 percent of plastic waste ending up in the oceans comes from just 10 major rivers, one of which is the Mekong.

The biggest problem is that plastic does not biodegrade easily, staying around for hundreds of years. In marine areas, more than 1 million mammals, fish and birds suffer from ingesting plastic or becoming entangled in plastic materials. More than 90 precnet of all birds and fish are reported to have plastic particles in their stomach. In this way, toxic chemicals accumulate and pass through the food chain to our human bodies.

More than 100 countries and cities including Cambodia are now introducing new measures for plastic waste. In Cambodia, since 2018, the Royal Government of Cambodia has promoted the 4Rs framework to provide solutions to the country’s plastic problem, including a sub-decree to introduce a small charge on plastic bags.

To further tackle the plastic pollution, this new project will develop regulations, raise awareness, and reduce plastic waste in target areas, and promote recycling and plastic alternatives. Target provinces include major cities and coastal provinces: Siem Reap, Sihanoukville, Phnom Penh, Kep, Kampot and Koh Kong for the effective reduction of marine plastic pollution at source.

“The effective reduction of plastic waste requires concerted efforts from everyone,” highlighted by H.E. Say Samal, Minister of Environment.
- AKP
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Re: Cambodia's plastic problem

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A great local initiative to recycle plastic bags:

Local Recycling Firm Committed to Helping Battambang Province Reducing Plastic Waste
A small plastic bag reprocessing firm is helping tackle Cambodia’s waste problem, buying more than 60 tonnes every month from scavengers in Battambang and Siem Reap provinces.

Lay Sopheavatey and Thien Phearin 24/02/2021 12:24 PM
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A photo shows plastic bags which are remanufactured by Chanthara's plastic bag reprocessing firm. Photo supplied.
PHNOM PENH--A small plastic bag reprocessing firm is helping tackle Cambodia’s waste problem, buying more than 60 tonnes every month from scavengers in Battambang and Siem Reap provinces.

The business in Battambang’s Tapoung commune has been remanufacturing plastic bags since early last year despite challenges. especially foreign competition.

Business owner Neang Chanthara said he worked for a Thai-owned plastic recycling firm in Battambang in 2017.

At that time, his employer bought used plastic bags from waste collectors. But the business produced only raw plastic grains and sold them to Thailand and Vietnam. The owner gave up the business because it made little profit. Chanthara and a friend bought it.

“As this business helps society and the environment, and we are encouraged by the government to promote clean cities, we have kept running the business even if we only get a little profit,” Chanthara said.

He said that previously he sold only plastic grains produced from waste plastic bags to others who produced the bags. However, since 2020 he had decided to expand operations to produce the bags.

He also previously planned to buy used plastic bags from trash collectors in Pailin province but it didn’t work out as these collectors didn’t cooperate properly.

Most scavengers did not want to pick up plastic bags because it was not cost-effective compared with other trash. However, Chanthara has worked on explaining the benefits so that some will keep collecting the bags for him.

Currently, he pays 300 riel per kilo for plastic bags. One tonne can reproduce between 550-600 kilos of recycled product.
https://cambodianess.com/article/local- ... ic-waste-1
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