Unlike the UK – Recycling in Thailand is not compulsory and run by the State but just the opposite the recycling system is run by private individuals who make a tidy profit from recycling waste, there are many people who will collect you recyclable waste and actually pay you for it. Most of these individuals will come to your house in their samlor and collect the waste you have set aside for recycling, they will separate it, weigh it and give you a few Baht’s in the process. Unlike in the UK where the authorities actually charge you for recycling and fine you if you don’t do it.

These individuals then take it to larger recycling centres – again privately run where they compact it into bales of Plastic, Tin, and Carboard etc. for selling on – again at a tidy profit.

There’s a saying in the UK where’s there’s muck there’s brass, In Thailand that translates as where’s there rubbish there money to be made and not an insignificant amount.