According to Prayut, this will stop Thailand from being viewed as the “trash basket of the globe.”
A day after the Cabinet decided to forbid the import of plastic garbage beginning in 2025, he made the claim in a Facebook post.
Under his direction, the Interior Ministry, Industry Ministry, Commerce Ministry, and Natural Resources and Environment Ministry collaborated to create a roadmap to prohibit the import of plastic garbage, according to Prayut.
If he is elected again, his administration would put the roadmap into action, he said, which will result in a complete prohibition on the import of trash plastic beginning in 2025.
The policy has already through its initial phase of implementation. The government reduced the import of plastic garbage from 2019 to 2020 to supply recycling facilities outside of special economic zones (SEZs). No plastic garbage was imported for recycling facilities outside of SEZs by September 2020.
From 2023 to 2024, only 14 recycling facilities would be allowed to import plastic waste for export to SEZs.
Plastic scrap imports will be prohibited starting on December 31, 2024, he said.
According to him, the 14 recycling factories in SEZs will only be able to import 372,994 tonnes of plastic scrap in the first year and half that amount in the second year of 2023 and 2024.
According to Prayut, government organizations have been told to step up efforts to stop the smuggling of plastic garbage into the nation.
