**1. Introduction**

Thailand is located in the center of South East Asia and has a total area of about 514,000 km<sup>2</sup> (200,000 mile2 ). The Tourism Authority of Thailand [1] noted that looking at a map of Thailand (**Figure 1**) shows a country whose borders form the rough shape of an elephant's head, the head and ears forming the mostly landlocked northern and eastern provinces and

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Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. © 2018 The Author(s). Licensee IntechOpen. This chapter is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

**2. Waste situation in Thailand**

scavengers, investors, teachers, and people.

**2.1. Legislation affecting waste management**

Currently, the increases in the generation of municipal solid waste (hereafter MSW) caused by population growth and increasing economic development in developing countries has become one of the most serious environmental issues. Solid waste management (hereafter SWM) is difficult to implement as part of integrated management strategies and sustainable development in developing countries. A large amount of mixed waste is usually dumped in open landfills or burned outdoors. Many Asian countries have poor practical waste separation [5]. Despite the adoption of waste management strategies such as the so called 3Rs strategies (reduce, reuse, recycle), which have been widely implemented throughout the world during the last decade, a complete solution to the problems of SWM has not been found. Developing countries such as Thailand still produce large amounts of MSW which for some time have been overwhelming the available landfill sites. MSW generation has continuously increased over the years and in 2016, the total amount of MSW in the country, as reported by the Pollution Control Department (hereafter PCD), Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (hereafter MNRE), Thailand, was 27.06 million tons which represented an increase of 0.2 million tons since 2015. As an illustration, the amount of waste generated annually is equal to a hundred times the volume of the highest building in Thailand, "Baiyoke Tower II" which is 328 metres high. Of this waste only 14.81 million tons was placed in disposal sites, with waste recovery accounting for a further 4.64 million tons with the remaining 6.91 million tons accounted for by other means [6]. The efficiency of waste collection is about 80% countrywide but only 36% of the total generated waste is disposed of using acceptable processes such as incineration, composting or landfilling [7]. However, there are only 2500 waste recovery entrepreneurs nationwide of which only one fifth use proper waste disposal methods, the remaining four fifths use illegal waste disposal methods such as open dumping, and direct burning resulting in environmental contamination through leaching, and leakage of substances. Several landfills have been burned as has been reported in newspapers [8]. Only a small fraction of the MSW collected is managed by proper treatment or disposal and there is a need for a sustainable solution to these problems as well as the implementation of public participation strategies [9]. It inevitably involves municipalities,

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Generally, local authorities in Thailand are responsible for SWM on their administrative zones and the collection, treatment, and disposal of municipal, industrial and infectious waste is under the control of those local authorities. The MSW generated by the population of 66 million people is currently about 71,700 tons a day. The government of Gen. Prayut Chan-o-cha, the Prime Minister (hereafter PM) in power in Thailand since 24 September 2014, has recognized that the amount of waste generated and its management constitutes a serious issue and the government has adopted policies relating to SWM including the management of solid and hazardous waste. As part of this policy, the government has directed that each province should identify locations for the construction of waste facilities including proper landfill disposal sites and facilities to convert waste into renewable energy. This national strategy was incorporated into a solid and hazardous waste management roadmap which was drafted by the MNRE and represents a significant step in defining the national agenda relating to the solid waste issue.

**Figure 1.** Provincial administration in Thailand [4].

the trunk extending down the Malaysian peninsula between the Andaman Sea and the Gulf of Thailand. Thailand had a population of approximately 66 million in 2017 [2] and the provincial administration of Thailand is divided into 77 provinces. Thailand's climate is influenced by tropical monsoons and the weather in Thailand is generally hot and humid across most of the country throughout the year. The central, northern, and northeastern Thailand, especially the landlocked provinces have three different seasons, summer, the rainy season, and a cool season, whereas the southern and the coastal regions of Thailand have only two seasons which are the hot and rainy seasons. Generally, it is relatively hot most of the year. The cool season and the summer occur from November to February and March to May respectively. Between February and May the weather is mostly hot and dry. The rainy season, lasts from May to November and is dominated by the southwest monsoon, during which time rainfall in most of Thailand is at its heaviest [3].
