All of the waste that I create in my home, from soda bottles to paper to plastic bags, goes into one trash bin, or thang keeyah, which is picked up and taken to the landfill. While this city develops, people produce trash at a shocking rate, with nowhere for this trash to go but in a landfill.
The landfill to which Khon Kaen sends its trash is located about a two hour’s drive outside the city. According to an article written in the Issan Record, Khon Kaen’s local online newspaper, about 209 tons of trash are delivered to the landfill each day, which is a drastic increase from 2006, when 108 tons per day were sent there. During this time, the population of this city has hardly increased. This means that people tend to produce almost double the amount of waste today than they did just ten years ago.
One interesting side-effect of a landfill of this size is the livelihood, or ability to afford the things one needs in life, that it provides for certain communities living nearby. Families and individuals can earn money by scavenging through the trash piles, picking out recyclable goods like metal, paper, plastic and rubber, and selling it to the large-scale recycling facility located near the landfill. This allows these communities to pay for food and clean water, but at what cost? These families are forced to live extremely close to a rotting trash pile that constantly gives off toxic and smelly fumes. In addition, their work is dangerous, as they sift through mountains of garbage that may include broken glass, needles or other hazardous debris.
