Officials at Pattaya City Hall organised the spruce up after they were seemingly left red-faced when pictures of sunbathers ringed by litter went viral on social media. One unnamed source at the headquarters claimed the images were likely photoshopped to make the beaches seem dirtier than they actually were.
City hall brought in teams of workers and tractors to scour the beaches for unwanted trash. Beach vendors say the jetsam is a common sight during the annual monsoon season. Environmentalists note that Pattaya and and other seaside destinations in Thailand such as Phuket often stage beach or marine cleanups.
12GO ASIA says this is similar to locking the stable-door once the horse has bolted and does not deal with the root problem of educating people on how to dispose of their litter properly. The littering problem is not strictly one that Thailand faces alone as other nations from Cambodia to Sri Lanka share the same seas as Thailand.
The trash stays in the sea between November and May because the seas are calmer. The only hazard the trash presents then is to sea-turtles and other marine life as they often eat it thinking it is food.
Pattaya municipal authorities clear monsoon debris from beaches
News in Asia
Municipal authorities have staged a cleanup operation to remove rubbish from beaches at Pattaya and Jomtien. Piles of discarded bottles, plastic bags and other flotsam were washed up onto the beaches by the heavy monsoon rains sweeping across the Gulf of Thailand over the past couple of weeks.