Phuket officials prepare for ‘Clean Province’ contest

The criteria Phuket would be judged on was raised at a meeting of the provincial trash management committee, chaired by Phuket Vice Governor Pichet Panapong, at Phuket Provincial Hall yesterday (Mar 4).

Vice Governor Pichet explained that the meeting was held to follow up the general situation of solid trash management and the progress of the cooperation between Phuket City Municipality and the private sector on trash management. 

The meeting also reviewed the key criteria for the ‘Clean Province’ competition:

1. Driving the solid trash management action plan
2. Solid trash management process, including “upstream, midstream and downstream” processes
3. Promotion and publicising of solid trash management issues
4. Innovation and creative developments in solid trash management 

V/Gov Pichet said that the Phuket Provincial Government had been promoting campaigns for reducing and separating trash.

“The competition is to encourage local administrative organisations to promote to people in their areas to reduce the volume of trash created and to create sustainable trash-reduction processes in Phuket,” he said.

The review of the ‘Clean province’ criteria yesterday follows Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE) Minister Varawut Silpa-archa, the only son of now-deceased former Prime Minister Banharn Silpa-archa, inspecting the Phuket City Municipality incinerator at Saphan Hin during his visit to the island last Saturday (Feb 27).

Mr Varawut, accompanied by MNRE Permanent Secretary Chatuporn Kittipat were greeted by Phuket Governor Narong Woonciew and Phuket City Municipality Chief Administrative Office (Palad) Chalermporn Piyanarongroj, who is currently Acting Mayor of Phuket Town until the Mar 28 municipal elections have been held.

Governor Narong explained that the incinerator, officially called the Phuket Solid Waste Disposal Center, disposes of all solid waste collected by municipalities across the island,

He also explained that the facility generates electricity from the incineration process to feed back into the local grid – a process the facility has been doing for more than 20 years.

However, the volume of solid waste brought to the facility had grown consistently by 7% a year, up until the outbreak of COVID-19 began last year, Governor Narong explained.

About 925 tonnes of trash were brought to the incinerator each day in 2018. In 2019, that figure grew to 963 tonnes a day, he said.

Mr Varawut also expressed concern about the incinerator affecting the health of residents in the area. He was assured that public health was not affected by the facility.