Effects of National Policy and Political Structure on Local Waste Treatment

In this part, the natures of Thai policies and political structure at the national level will be discussed regarding how they affect local waste management. As national institutions, waste management regulation and political structure affect the local waste management system in many ways. However, this analysis will pay attention mainly to the limitation of technology and administration choices of waste treatment sites. These two choices affect the size of waste treatment system directly. Limitation of technology choice in this research will focus on the ability of the local government in choosing the type of technology (incinerators or landfill and detail of

each type) and operator of technology (private companies or the local government by themselves).

Limitation of the administration’s choice is that it will focus on the size of service of waste treatment system (single cities or multiple cities) and level of government that operates the waste treatment sites (local governments, central government, or provincial government).

This part will discuss four changes of local waste management, namely changeability, independence, diversity, and availability of choices. In each topic, the nature of government policies and political structure will be analysed regarding how they influence these fours changes and then how these changes affect the limitation of technology and administration choice of disposal sites.

2.4.1 Changeability of local waste management As an institution, local waste management can change. However, several factors make it difficult for an institution to change. In the case of local Thai waste management, both government policies and structure of the actor affect its changeability.

For government policies, static regulations are

the first barrier to local institutional changes. While the world keeps changing and issues of MSW is getting more complicated, Thailand is using the same laws for waste management since 1992.

This static law might be useful for policy continuity. However, it also reduces the changeability of local waste management. Although the central government has made several attempts to change local waste management, the inefficiency of national government in running the campaigns results in the laws remaining static. An efficient national waste management policy can be seen in

Figure 2.2: The effect of national institutions on changeability of local waste management

Prayuth’s period. After the government executed the waste management plan efficiently, there were technology changes in various cities. For example, a number of incinerators in Thailand increased from one municipal incinerator (1995-2012) to at least four municipal incinerators by the end of 2015, and the number of incinerators is planned to increase (Department of Alternative Energy Department and Efficiency, 2016).

The political structure also influences the changeability of local waste management. The political structure of Thai waste management separates policymakers from operators. While local governments are the operators for waste management, the policymakers are mostly the national level actors. Moreover, some of them are in the different administrative branch, such as the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment. This distance between the origin of policy and operator section can reduce the efficiency of the policy itself. This is a reason why several plans related to waste management—before the waste management master plan (2016–2021)—could not change local waste management much. In contrast, the waste management master plan (2016-2021) allows DLA, which controls local governments, become one of policymakers so that this plan could significantly change the domestic waste management.

Unchangeable local waste management can lead to a situation where local governments cannot change to new technology or administrative level of the waste treatment system. This is a limitation of technology and administration choices of local government. And this limitation is influenced by both government policies and the political structure.

2.4.2 Independency of local government Independence of local governments in this issue is also essential. If local governments have more independence, they can design a system suitable for their condition and local people. However, if they are largely dependent on central government, they would have to

implement changes as the central government wants although the new system might not be suitable and bring further troubles. The dependence of local government is a basic notion of decentralisation trend. Therefore, checking basis of decentralization in both the government policies and the political structure will really help us understand the independence of local government in general and waste management issues. For the regulation and government campaigns, there is big contradiction over the concept of decentralization in waste management.

The regulations, especially Decentralization Acts¹⁴, support independence of local government in various activities, including waste management. However, several national government campaigns based on the idea of centralization. For example, Prayuth’s project that will make provincial governments a take care of waste treatment and set waste management committee to control waste issue in Thailand is really opposite from the idea of the decentralization laws, which assign this task to municipal governments. Moreover, the central government also builds a fiscal condition that makes it harder for the local government to be independent. For example, the Public Health Act limits the waste management fee at 20 baht per month for each household (“Bangkok said will

14 There are multiple laws in Thailand which is related with political decentralization, such as 1950 Municipality Act, 1994 Tambon administrative organization and council Act of, 1997 Provincial government act, and 1999 Decentralization Plan and Procedures Act.

Figure 2.3: The effect of national institutions on independency of local governments

not increase maximum waste collection fee after ministry of interior increase the fee limitation, 2016”)¹⁵. This fee is not adequate for the waste management to run by itself. Therefore, local governments have to subsidise this activity. However, local governments are also generally faced with a shortage of the budget because budget allocation is not enough. In the 2006 Decentralization Plan Act, the central government will allocate at least 35% of national budget to local governments;

however, the central government cannot do it and change the goal in 2007 to only 25% of the national budget. In 2015, 27% of the national budget was allocated to local governments although it is higher than the goal in 2007 but still less than the first goal in 2006. This imbalance of budget allocation disables local governments to operate local service as much as they get assigned by the Decentralization Acts, including waste management.

The political structure also binds local governments with the central government. Although the central government distributes 27%of national budget to local government, some of this budget goes to local governments as subsidised money, where the central government can decide what that budget can be used for. This makes local government obliged to follow the policies of the central government. Especially during Prayuth’s period, there were several projects and budget-supported waste treatment sites, primarily incinerators (Saowaluk, 2014). Therefore, to get this budget, local governments have to change their domestic waste management policies as per the demands of the central government. For example, the Ayutthaya city had to change the plan for waste disposal from sending them to a private incinerator to building their own incinerator for serving the whole province (Puaongpan, 2016).

15 After the 2017 Cleanliness and Tidiness of the Country Act, service fee of waste management can go up to 200 baht per month for a household.

Independence of local governments strongly affects the limitation of choice in technology and administration. If local governments are highly dependent on central government, their options will be limited by central government as in the example of the Ayutthaya city. However, this does not mean if local government have more independence, their priority will change from central government campaigns to local people’s needs. Before Prayuth’s period, when local waste management was not tied with central government subsidy, there are several cases where local people went against waste disposal project because it is not the technology what they wanted;

thereby, local governments had to cancel the projects. During Prayuth’s period, such local movements become smaller but still active¹⁶. In short, independence of local government does not delete limitation of technology and administration choice of domestic waste disposal.

However, it is an indicator of who influences the decision of local government—local people or the central government. The central government will have substantial influence when local governments have low independence, and local government can respond better to local needs if they are independent.

2.4.3 Diversity of local waste management

Diversity, in this part, refers to the state where each municipality has different styles of waste management, including technology and administration of waste treatment. Diversity of local waste management might look like independence of local governments because both of them can be promoted by decentralization. However, it might not be related with decentralization, but this

16 There are several cases of demonstration against incinerators during Prayuth’s period, such as in Phitsanulok

(“Demonstration against waste to energy incinerator”, 2017), Khosamui (“Local people in Kanjanadit go against waste import from Kho samui”, 2017), and Samuthsongkram (“Locals in Bangtorud go against waste separation factory and waste to energy incinerator”, 2016).

nature of local politics might happen because the central government by itself cannot control local governments, or there is no specific law for the issues.

Inefficient national campaigns and no specific law are both primary reasons why there are several styles of local waste management. As shown in Appendix III, a lot of low standard waste treatment sites and many local governments do not operate waste collection and disposal service.

This data is from PCD, which means central government knows about the low standard waste treatments and abandoned services; however, the central government cannot enforce the regulation.

For example, in the case of the Phitsanulok province, PCD shut down several landfills because they were below the standards; however, the local governments could not find other optional landfills. Therefore, the provincial Governor

had to negotiate with PCD to reopen the below standard landfills (Suthi, 2015). The low ability in law enforcement might be because of the distance of local governments from centers of power, resource inadequacy of local government, or little ability of central government.

No specific law for waste management is another reason for diverse local waste management. It is because till 2017, waste management in Thailand had been operated on general administrative law, such as Public Health Act, Act of Support and Protect Environment Quality, Act of Cleanness of the Cities Act, and Municipality Act. Therefore, local governments have room to design the system that suits their conditions. In case of technology and administration, some cities use landfills and some cooperate with other cities to afford incinerators, while some others

Figure 2.4: the effect of national institutions on diversity of local waste management

send their waste to private landfills or incinerators far away from their areas because of local conflict. Diversity of waste management and disposal is really high due to lack of a specific waste management law. However, this diversity also came with drawbacks because too much flexibility might lead to low standard waste treatment. Therefore, a lot of rules had been set in order to maintain the balance of the diversity. Those rules might reduce the choice of local governments in choosing technology or style of administration but increase the quality of waste disposal.

Lastly, some actors from the structure also can increase the diversity of local waste management. In the case of Thailand. Several local cities cooperate with international organizations, such as oversea municipalities, international governments, or NGOs. These non-government actors bring both new technology and administration style of waste disposal. For example, the Fukuoka style landfill gets support from the Japanese government in several cities, such as Nakorn Ratchasima, Nonthaburi, and Yala municipalities (Akihisa, 2006). In short, diversity in local waste management is the product of the inefficiency of central government, non-specific waste management laws, and non-government actors in the structure. More diversity means low limitation of technology and administration style in local waste management.

2.4.4 Availability of choice

In the previous three topics, we discussed the limitation of technology and administration style by focusing on only the condition of government organizations (changeability, independence, and diversity). However, availability of choices by itself also affects the limitation. More the available technology and

Figure 2.5: the effect of national institutions on available of choice

administration in the sphere, more the choices local governments have. Some choices are prohibited by regulations, and some new choices appear because new actors step into the political structure.

Actors are one of the essential factors that bring new choices into the sphere. In the past, local government operated waste management by themselves; therefore, choice of technology and administrative style was depended on conditions of the local government. Most of the time local government imitate other local governments that have a high reputation in waste management, such as Phitsanulok Municipality, Nonthaburi PAO, or Phuket Municipality. However, today, in Thailand, private companies have become important actor of waste management. They can provide cheaper and better quality waste treatment and introduce newly available technologies of disposal to the system, such as in WtE incinerators or Refuse Derived Fuel. Presently, in Thailand, every incinerator in municipal sites is operate by private companies (Department of Alternative Energy Department and Efficiency, 2016). International organizations or cooperation with oversea municipalities or government also introduce newly available technology to local government.

Newly available technologies are accompanied a new system. For example, in the past, landfill might serve only one or two municipalities because of the limitation in space and logistic cost.

Incinerators require bigger system of service to be cost effective by economics of scale. Further cities can share one incinerator because the cost of logistics can be subsidised by selling electricity.

This is an example of how new actors can change the available choice of technology and how technology changes the size of the system.

However, offered technology and administration choices are also limited by regulations and standards. If the technology is illegal, it will not be available in the market. Some regulations might increase the prices of the technology and reduce the availability of that technology as a

choice for local government. For example, increased tax on electric generators might lead to higher cost of WtE incinerators.