Rubbish

[PattayaMale]

One of the things that is still an unbelievable bargain is the cost of rubbish service here in Pattaya. The lady just came to collect the yearly fee.

 

The truck comes to our house 3 times a week (around midnight). The workers never leave a mess. They do the job and place our trash bins back where they belong each time.

 

The total cost for this service is just 480 baht........a YEAR!

[Gaybutton]

I have the same kind of service. Mine costs 600 baht per year. That's up from 450 baht per year. That price lasted nearly ten years before it was raised. Back in the USA it used to cost me about four times that much . . . per month!

 

City water is a bargain here too. The most expensive monthly water bill I've ever received was 120 baht. Believe it or not, for reasons I don't understand, in my neighborhood the water has been absolutely free for the past six months. For a while I thought my water bill had to be wrong when the amount owed was showing as zero. I asked a Thai neighbor about it and he told me the water in my area is going to be free for at least six months. He had no idea why, but neither he nor I nor any of my neighbors are complaining.

[Guest jtrack33]

The free water is pretty much a nation-wide program started by the government last year to assist the poor mainly as a result of the sky-high oil prices. It was started at the same time and as part of the same program as many of the non-aircon buses in Bangkok stopped charging passengers. Electric consumption below a certain amount became free also. In Ubon I pay the electric bill on two buildings by direct debit, as mentioned in another thread. Neither bill is more than about Bht150/month. One of those buildings stopped being billed about 6 months ago. There was a usage rate that below which you would not be charged, but like the buses, not all were free and hence I still pay one of my electric bills in Ubon, despite it being below the unit consumption rate to qualify.

[Guest laurence]

Price of garbage pickup/disposal may be related to the "tipping" fees, as it is known in the trade, for disposing of the garbage. Just where do you think they dump it? We know where the sewage ends up.

[Guest]

That's a bargain.

In the UK I pay nearly £2000 a year in council tax, to get my bins emptied & pay for a few other services which I mostly don't want or don't use.

[Gaybutton]

Just where do you think they dump it?

I can answer that one. There is a landfill east of the city. That's where it ends up when it doesn't end up in the neighbor's yard . . .

 

Some of it gets recycled. Not by recycling centers, though. Some people make their living or supplement their living by "garbage picking." The literally go through people's garbage cans and take out anything they can sell. Empty plastic water bottles are quite popular with them. I make it a little more convenient for the local garbage pickers around my house. I pack up the empty plastic bottles in a separate garbage bag for them.

 

If you have a broken piece of furniture or an old appliance you're trying to get rid of, just put it outside. It will probably be gone within an hour.

[Guest dale1]

At View Talay #1 Condo, we pay 10 baht/month for garbage collection -- 120 baht/year ......... indeed a bargain ......... added to the monthly water bill ......... that would be a total of about 16,500 baht/month -- 198,000 baht/year for the total of 1650 apartments in the two 15-story buildings .......... not sure if the collection folks are Pattaya Government employees or if it is private company.

[Guest laurence]

I can answer that one. There is a landfill east of the city. That's where it ends up when it doesn't end up in the neighbor's yard . . .

 

If you have a broken piece of furniture or an old appliance you're trying to get rid of, just put it outside. It will probably be gone within an hour.

 

I cannot imagine that "land fills" in Thailand are regulated as they are in the US which were not regulated until recently.

 

But as GB writes, even where I live, just put any old furniture or appliance outside and it is gone, as if by magic. Not in LOS but in USA.

 

[Guest joseph44]

Where I used to live and will be living again as from the 4th of Feb, I did put an old piece of furniture along the side of the road.

The envirnoment-police came and fined me and while they wrote the ticket, a van stopped and loaded the piece of furniture.

I had to pay enyway.

 

 

[PattayaMale]

In Los Angeles, CA where I lived, you were asked to put any bulky item on the curb and call a special pick up number and the city would send a truck to pick it up. However as others have said, before the city trucks got there, the item was gone.

 

When I was moving here, I had a shipping company bring a container to my property. I hired some movers to pack and take the boxes and furniture to the curb while we waited for the container truck. As we were going back and forth. A van pulled up and started to put some items in their van. Thankfully one of the movers (who spoke Spanish) was taking more stuff to the curb and told the gut in the van that we were waiting for a moving container. The van driver apologized and even helped us load the container truck when it arrived. I gave the guy a $20 tip and he was happy.

[Guest GaySacGuy]

In Ubon, they pick up tracsh once a week, and I believe it was something like 300 baht for six months...not sure. But they do recycle. There are usually four guys with the truck, and they open and dump every plastic bag as it goes in the truck, and take out what they can sell. I don't know whether the guys or the company get the funds, but they are sure saving everything that they can save.