The Industrial Works Department is planning to collect fees from waste treatment business operators to deal with illegal waste dumping.
Seri Atipatha, deputy department chief, said the fees to be collected from the waste treatment operators will be used to set up a fund to pay for the cost in handling and treating illegally-dumped hazardous waste.
A regulation is being drawn up to facilitate the formation of the fund, which has become necessary due to rises in the illegal practice, particularly in areas close to residential communities.
"We are thinking about collecting the fees on an annual basis but we have yet to decide on the rate," Mr Seri said, during a panel discussion on industrial waste management organised by the Senate's committee on natural resources and the environment on Wednesday.
Mr Seri admitted it was difficult for his department to deal with illegal industrial waste dumping because it was often found that the problem involved conspiracies between factory and land owners.
The land owners willingly allowed industrial operators to dump waste on their land in exchange for money, he said.
In some other cases, factories simply dumped their waste illegally in other places because they produced too much waste to properly treat it themselves.
The cabinet ordered in 2009 for the department to register 80% of factories in 18 industrial categories under its waste management system.
Under the system, the volume of waste produced and treated by factories are monitored, and their transport routes are tracked.
There are about 100,000 factories under the 18 industrial categories, of which 4,000 are under the control of the Industrial Estate Authority of Thailand.
Mr Seri conceded that at present only 20% of the factories have joined the department's waste management system, but hoped more will join later.
According to departmental records, industrial factories produced 24.4 million tons of industrial waste between June last year to May this year.