BANGKOK, June 5 (Xinhua) -- The Thai Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment on Wednesday organized an event in Bangkok to mark the World Environment Day, focusing on air pollution and plastic waste.
Wijarn Simachaya, permanent secretary of the ministry, said the recent air pollution had heavily affected people in Thailand.
"The recent air pollution across Thailand had seriously impacted people's health and severely affected the tourism industry," said Wijarn.
Automotive technologies and efforts to properly handle garbage and weeds and ban field and forest burning would be top agendas under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, he said.
Regarding plastic waste, Wijarn said Thailand reduced the use of plastic bags by 1.3-1.5 billion units or about 2,600 tons per year while it used 2 million tons of plastic products annually.
"However, the reduction of plastic bags were not enough," said Wijarn, "because only 500,000 tons of the plastic products were properly handled."
Wijarn said his ministry planned to end the use of plastic cap seals, oxo-degradable plastics and microbeads before the end of 2019.
"Plastic shopping bags will be manufactured at less than 36 microns in thickness," he said, adding that styrofoam boxes, thin single-use plastic cups and plastic straws would be banned within 2022.
