On 3 September 2021, the Corporate Sustainability Handprint (CSH) Thailand team under the Ecological Balance Dimension organised a virtual workshop on the topic “Goodbye, my unsorted waste” for GIZ Thailand staff. The workshop aimed at providing information on the current situation of waste in Thailand as well as encouraging knowledge sharing and suggesting how to sort your waste properly.

During the workshop, Dr Lunchakorn Prathumratana from the EU SWITCH-Asia: Promoting Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) and Ms Pimpilas Nuntiphon Khoeiram from the Thai-German Climate Programme – Waste (TGCP-Waste) project who are part of CSH Thailand shared their knowledge on several topics. They talked about how everyone can simply sort their waste and explained about the colour code of waste bin where:

• Green bin is for waste that can decompose and be converted into fertiliser such as food and garden waste;
• Yellow bin is for waste that can be recycled such as glass, paper, plastic and recyclable metals;
• Blue bin is for non-toxic waste that takes a long time to decompose and is not cost-efficient to recycle such as sweet wrappers, instant noodle package, plastic bags, foam and foil packagings that are contaminated with food; and
• Red bin is for hazardous waste such as fluorescent light bulbs, medicine bottles, batteries, spray paint, pesticide containers and hazardous substance storage.

Apart from providing information, CSH Thailand team provided an opportunity for all participants to express their opinions through a waste sorting exercise together with a proper waste management presentation including simple sorting according to 4 main types of waste and detailed sorting according to its elements and compounds. Recyclable waste such as plastic can be divided into opaque plastic, transparent plastic or it can also be categorised into 7 common types of plastic (PET, HDPE, PVC, LDPE, PP, PS and others). One of the waste sorting examples is water bottle. For simple sorting, it can be discarded in recycle bin, but if go deeper into details, we will find out that the body of the bottle is generally made from PET, its cap is made from HDPE or PP and its label is PVC.

Mr Reinhold Elges, Country Director of GIZ Thailand and Malaysia, stated “Today’s activity is a very interesting activity that will help strengthen knowledge and understanding about a proper way of sorting waste for GIZ Thailand staff. Waste sorting is very important and beneficial as it helps reduce the amount of waste due to recycling process, so we have less waste to be disposed or go to landfills. Moreover, waste sorting helps reduce energy and resource consumption as recyclable waste helps increase income and resource utilisation. I believe this activity will be a good start for highlighting the importance of waste sorting where everyone can apply the knowledge to their daily life. I would like everyone to help sort and separate waste for ourselves and for our world.”