Thammasat Policy on Solid Waste management committed to track and measure the amount of waste and its management. In 2019, Thammasat University enacted a Policy on Solid Waste management to advance the university towards becoming a sustainable university. The policy provides a direction on systematic and effective waste management within the university and is applied to all parties of the university from students, staff, store owners, as well as individuals who perform other activities related to waste creation in the university area.
The item 6 of this policy stresses that “The University will need to be able to track and check the method of waste disposal during waste delivery to the disposal destination to note the amount of each type of waste that has been recycled and the amount of waste that has been taken to landfill, so that the university can appropriately promote activities that help increase waste recycling and reuse waste going to landfills.
The table below shows the amount of waste produced by Thammasat University in 2020 – first half of 2022. General waste refers to non-recyclable waste, which the university passes on to local municipality. It is unclear though how the municipality deals with the waste. It is therefore assumed to be managed by sending to landfill. Recyclable waste refers to recyclable waste dealt with by Thammasat University’s facilities.
According to the data, the total amount of waste in 2021 (2,439.6 tons) was reduced from the level of 2020 (3,175.3 tons). More importantly the proportion of recyclable waste has increased significantly relative to 2020, from 20.96 percentage in the second half of 2020 to 27.01 and 30.04 percentages in the first and second half of 2021 respectively.
| Amount of waste | Jan-Jun 2020 | Jul-Dec 2020 | Jan-Jun 2021 | Jul-Dec 2021 | Jan-Jun 2022 |
| General waste (Tons) | 1050.00 | 1425.00 | 920.00 | 825.00 | 810.00 |
| General waste (Percentage) | 76.51 | 79.04 | 72.99 | 69.96 | 68.28 |
| Recyclable waste (Tons) | 322.31 | 377.99 | 340.43 | 354.17 | 376.35 |
| Recyclable waste (Percentage) | 23.49 | 20.96 | 27.01 | 30.04 | 31.72 |
Despite the increase in the proportion of recyclable waste, Thammasat University still has much to do to increase the proportion of recyclable waste. The university may need to track how its waste is dealt with by the municipality and how to support the municipality to manage the waste more sustainably.
