The Waste nobody owns: household hazardous waste and the institutional gap in Thai local waste management

Abstract

In 2024 Thailand generated 685,999 tons of household hazardous waste, of which 445,899 tons, or about 65 percent, consisted of waste electrical and electronic equipment. That volume represents roughly two and a half percent of the 27.20 million tons of municipal solid waste generated in the same year. This academic article argues that this small share is precisely the problem. Thailand's national waste target, set by the Thirteenth National Economic and Social Development Plan at a utilization rate of at least 40 percent by 2027, is expressed in tonnage. Under a tonnage metric, investment in household hazardous waste yields almost no measurable improvement, so local administrative organizations acting rationally will deprioritize it. The article identifies three reinforcing institutional gaps: an incentive gap created by the tonnage metric itself; a scale gap, because the volume arising in any single local administrative organization is too small to justify a dedicated facility; and a downstream responsibility gap, because producers of batteries, lamps and electronic equipment bear no statutory take-back obligation. Composition surveys conducted at disposal sites in 2024 confirm the consequence: household hazardous waste and electronic waste continue to arrive at disposal sites mixed with general waste. The article proposes the 3S model, comprising separation at source, scaling through provincial clustering, and shifting responsibility upstream through extended producer responsibility, together with a risk-weighted indicator to replace the tonnage metric for this waste stream.