Environmental justice finally prevailed for a community in Ratchaburi province that has suffered from the environmental impacts of garbage recycling for almost two decades.
On Monday, waste disposal trucks hired by the Department of Industrial Works (DIW) finally entered the Wax Garbage Recycle Center to start collecting over 13,000 tonnes of toxic waste from within the recycling plant to have it properly disposed of. The process will take seven months. Then, the department will start surveying the ground as it is believed there are 200,000 tonnes of toxic waste buried there.
It is the first time that the DIW, which comes under the Industry Ministry, has succeeded in entering the plant. Two months ago, officials were blocked on several occasions by the company's men when they tried to enter to retrieve waste to get treated. This time, the department had to ask for police and soldiers to accompany them into the factory.
The Wax Garbage Recycle Center Company is a glaring example of the problem of recycling factories in Thailand. Operating as a recycling and waste disposal plant on a 300-rai plot of land in tambon Nam Phu of Ratchaburi's Muang district, the company was ordered by a court in 2020 to pay about one million baht in cash to all three plaintiffs who filed complaints about the plant in 2017. The court also ordered the plant to provide medical treatment for them, clean up the waste and rehabilitate contaminated farmland.
So far, the company has done nothing and tried to fight the case. The compensation may look meagre when compared to their demand of 500 million baht in total. But given that the lawsuit is a class-action one, the ruling also applies to some 1,000 villagers in the community who have been affected by the same pollution. The lawsuit is the first since the new legal code on class-action suits took effect in 2016.
Villagers say they have been up to their necks for two decades. They have complained about wastewater being discharged into a river since 2001, after the recycling company began operating.
Earlier, the Pollution Control Department investigated the villagers' claims and found heavy metal exceeding safety levels in samples of water from the river and soil. The plant has brushed aside the claims and urged the authorities to look into farming practices in the area, which it believes could have been the cause.
This factory is not an isolated case. There are similar complaints from communities with recycling plants in their midst. Another example saw the Pollution Control Department sue Win Process, a recycling company operating in Rayong. Here, the department demanded 1.3 billion baht for environmental cleanup costs. Citizens in tambon Si Thep in Phetchabun province, meanwhile, are suing a recycling firm, while communities with recycling factories in Ayutthaya, Prachin Buri and Saraburi are also going to court.
These villagers should not have had to revert to the courts if the DIW worked harder and was bolder in monitoring plants and enforcing the law in the first place.
But policing these irresponsible plants is not enough. The problems stem from a weak law. The current law, which is aimed at promoting recycling, does not require recycling plants to submit an environmental impact assessment. The Prayut Chan-o-cha government, with the aim to promote recycling, introduced the new law which permits recycling plants to operate within communities. Without changing both laws, these plants, which should be green businesses, will be a nightmare for communities.