Rubbish cleared by New Year

City Hall expects to finish disposing of rubbish flushed out by the floods before New Year.

The Bangkok Metropolitan Administration (BMA) is collecting about 11,300 tonnes of rubbish a day from the city's 50 districts, said Kriengpol Padhanarath, a deputy director of the BMA's Department of Environment.

Rubbish collectors are picking up only 90% of what they could be taking because some rubbish is left behind in areas that are still swamped such as Sai Mai, 

Don Muang and Bang Khen districts."Normally, we collect 8,500 tonnes of rubbish a day, but the floods have caused the amount of rubbish to surge by two or three times, including that which is uncollected," Mr Kriengpol said.

The additional garbage came from consumption of food, damaged furniture, and other materials such as wood discarded after the floods.

When the flooding was at its worst, the BMA hired private rubbish collectors to collect and move rubbish out of inundated zones by boat.

Most of the hired rubbish handlers were actually residents of those areas, Mr Kriengpol said. Ten districts were still regarded as flood zones with certain parts of them still under water.

The BMA wants to hasten efforts to collect rubbish from those areas, so it has rented 10 10-wheel and 10 six-wheel trucks, two backhoes and two wheel loaders to add to its fleet of vehicles used to handle rubbish in the city.

Although rubbish management stations survived the floods, the transport of garbage to them was interrupted during the floods, as connecting roads were inundated, Mr Kriengpol said.

As for sand from sandbags left over from the floods, deputy city clerk Sompob Rangabtook said bags would be moved to each district office for temporary storage.

If anyone wants to make use of them, they can contact the BMA and staff would deliver the bags to them.