Thailand’s struggling battle against air pollution

For weeks now, most of the friends and families I know have had a cough of some kind. The pollution in the dry season in Thailand has long been a problem.

But recently, it’s reached dangerous and deeply worrying levels.

Bangkok was the fourth most polluted city in the world this month. Across 31 districts 352 schools were also closed because of pollution.

For weeks, I’ve had to rush my children into school with masks on, as the cheery teachers apologetically declare: “Pollution day so straight into class please.”

I like to go running with my son before school. But these days we’ve had to check the air quality index before we venture out.

Unfortunately, there have been plenty of mornings when the red bar appears, the screen reads, “very unhealthy” and we have to stay in.

It’s not a ritual I ever imagined having to go through with my kids in an era when governments know full well the dangers of pollutants and have the technology and know-how to reduce it.

Pollution is linked to the deaths of 100 children under five daily in South East Asia and the Pacific, according to a report this week by UNICEF.

This when clean air should be a universal right.

I’ve started to really worry about what living in Bangkok and many other parts of Thailand is doing to little lungs long term.

You can feel the smog in the back of your throat and sometimes, you can see the haze. But other days it’s hidden – a silent killer.

‘Rainmaker’

The Thai government hopes a plane that’s become known as the “rainmaker” might help.

In Hua Hin, about a three hour drive south of Bangkok, we get on board for a flight back to the capital. Two big plastic containers are being filled with 1,000 litres of icy water through a pump.

Today they’re dropping it over 16km of land shrouded in pollution. They do it twice a day across the country.

It’s an unconventional method and critics say so far unproven, but the hope is that it will cool down the warm air below and help disperse the trapped polluted particles cloaking the city.

The big worry right now is the PM 2.5 levels – cancer-causing particles that get into the lungs and bloodstream. Recently, they were eight times what the World Health Organization recommends.

Pollution ‘getting worse every year’

Pilot Aim Suracharttumrongrat tells me: “It’s a very huge scale problem. Our mission here is one of helping. But it’s not solving the problem.”

He gestures out the window to show how hard it is to see. “I’m very surprised,” he says of how bad the pollution currently is. “It’s higher every year.”

A couple of hours drive away in Ratchaburi province, you can see a big part of the problem – burnt fields of rice, sugar cane and corn – the product of slash-and-burn farming.

It’s a cheap and efficient way for poor farmers to clear the land, and they’re encouraged by big businesses driving up demand.

International smog and toxic traffic

It’s not the only problem.

Toxic traffic is playing its part too. The government has been trying to counter that by offering free public transport.

Winds from China and India have also contributed to the recent haze – earlier and more intense than previous years.

The government has rules in place against burning crops. But punishments aren’t always enforced and if Thailand and other countries are serious about improving the situation, holding big agricultural companies to account will be key.

China and Singapore are two nations that have turned things around.

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Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra recently admitted despite adopting a wide range of measures, air quality is still bad.

She said she had personally raised the issue of transboundary smog with ASEAN foreign ministers.

But Thailand will arguably have to go much further than that if it’s to turn things around – in policy and practice.