Global Plastic Policy Reviews

This act gives the National Environment Board the power to prescribe environmental quality standards, mandates formulating an Environmental Quality Management Plan and environmental impact assessment (EIA) practise, mandates the minimum measures for related ministerial regulations. It specifically amends requirements on environmental impact assessment (EIA) based on the Constitution. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the National Environment Board, and the Pollution Control Committee are responsible for the enforcement of this Act. The primary drivers for this policy were political and environmental including a public movement against pollution, and an international stimulus from international organisations such as the UN (Phothiruk, 2021).

There was insufficient evidence available to complete the evaluation framework at the time of the assessment although several reports indicate that enforcement is in place despite being uneven in some cases (”Chiang Mai people sue PM for failing to tackle smog”, 2023; Weinman, 2023; Connor, 2023; Templeton, 2017). Some conflicts between the government and the public have been reported about waste-to-energy plants, which are exempt from the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) process, but can still cause significant environmental degradation and haze pollution in Thailand and neighbouring countries (Rujivanarom, 2023). Despite the pollution from waste incineration especially plastic waste from waste-to-energy plants being toxic to both the environment and people’s health, the number of waste-to-energy plants in Thailand has increased from 11 in 2014 to 25 in 2022 and will increase further (Rujivanarom, 2023).