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Bangkok (Associated Press)-On Friday night, Thais flocked to rivers and lakes to release small floats decorated with flowers and candles in the annual festival to commemorate the goddess of water. Thousands of small boats eventually blocked and Polluted the country's waterways.
Within a few hours, the workers began to trawl in the river, as paying tribute to the gods was increasingly proven to be harmful to the ecology.
The Loy Krathong Festival allows believers to symbolically float their misfortune on the "krathongs" and start a new year of life in a whole new way. This festival is celebrated on the night of the full moon in December of the lunar calendar and traditionally marks the end of the rainy season.
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a leading marine biologist in Thailand, said that it is still urgent to stop people from using hazardous materials such as polystyrene foam (styrofoam) as floating objects because they cause the greatest damage to water and aquatic life. He believes that the number of endangered marine life found on shore has doubled from 2017 to 2020 due to the problem of marine debris in Thailand.
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Activists have noticed changes in people's behavior over the decades, which shows that people are becoming more aware of the damage caused by water lanterns. The total number of water lamps collected in Bangkok has dropped from more than 900,000 in 2012 to more than 490,000 last year, while the number of floats made of polystyrene foam dropped sharply during the same period, from 131,000 to 18,000 the following.
Even so, some environmentalists still advocate a more radical solution.
“We need to completely change this approach to restore the waterway ecosystem,” said Tara Buakamsri, Thailand’s country director for Greenpeace. "We should not release any floating objects, because even if they are made of natural materials, their number exceeds the amount that the river can handle naturally."
"We rely on clean water for our livelihoods. The goal of Loy Krathong Festival should be to protect and restore our rivers, not to inject anything into it."
Nopparat Tangtonwong, a supplier of Pak Klong Market, which is famous for selling flowers, said that due to the pandemic, sales of water lantern materials have been slow this year.
She said: “COVID-19 has caused an economic downturn, so people prefer to save money and go online.”
She said that at the same time, children are not interested in banana leaf floats, which are the main natural substitute for styrofoam. "They prefer floats made of ice cream cones and bread because they can feed fish at the same time."
Wijarn Simachaya, director of the Thailand Environmental Research Institute, said that this approach did not help. "If you float in a place where there are no fish, those floating objects will pollute the water. It is also difficult to collect them because the bread will absorb water and sink into the river."
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"In addition, sellers usually add chemical pigments to these floats, which are harmful to water," he said.
Wijarn said that banana leaves are the best water lamp material because they do not decompose too quickly, and once they are collected, they can be used to make fertilizer.
"Holding a virtual Loy Krathong celebration is another good solution to avoid environmental damage, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, but I don't think it can satisfy people's lifestyle because they still want to enjoy this festival," He said.
Late on Friday night, after people cast aside their worries, municipal workers came out to pick up a large swath of floating objects floating down the canal and then they would decompose and pollute the water source.
Dozens of small boats travel along the river, each carrying about six people and holding fishing nets. The boat then takes the caught fish to the moored mother ship, where it is dumped into a large paper shredder, compacted and towed by a garbage truck, and buried in a garbage dump.
"We hope that the number of water lamps made of polystyrene foam will continue to decrease this year, and will be less than last year. We will complete the clean-up work by 5 in the morning," said Chatri Watanakacho, a senior official in Bangkok. En (Chatree Wattanakhajorn) said.
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