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Bangkok Air Pollution Forces 352 Schools to Close

Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
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Bangkok Air Pollution Forces 352 Schools to Close

Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP
Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools Friday -- around a hundred more than the previous day. Lillian SUWANRUMPHA / AFP

Air pollution in the Thai capital forced the closure of more than 350 schools on Friday, city authorities said, the highest number in five years.

Bangkok officials announced free public transport for a week in a bid to reduce traffic in a city notorious for noxious exhaust fumes.

Seasonal air pollution has long afflicted Thailand, like many countries in the region, but this week's hazy conditions have shuttered the most schools since 2020, said AFP.

"Bangkok Metropolitan Administration has closed 352 schools across 31 districts due to air pollution," the authority said in a message shared on its official LINE group.

On Thursday, more than 250 schools in Bangkok were closed due to pollution, as officials urged people to work from home and restricted heavy vehicles in the city.

Air pollution hits the Southeast Asian nation seasonally, as colder, stagnant winter air combines with smoke from crop stubble burning and car fumes.

By Friday, the level of PM2.5 pollutants -- cancer-causing microparticles small enough to enter the bloodstream through the lungs -- hit 108 micrograms per cubic meter, according to IQAir.

The reading makes the Thai capital the world's seventh-most polluted major city currently.

The World Health Organization (WHO) recommends 24-hour average exposures should not be more than 15 for most days of the year.

By Friday morning, 352 of the 437 schools under the Bangkok Metropolitan Authority had shut their doors, affecting thousands of students.

Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul on Thursday ordered a ban on stubble burning -- intentionally burning leftover crops to clear fields -- with those responsible risking legal prosecution.

In another bid to curb pollution, a government minister said Friday that public transport in Bangkok would be free for a week.

The capital's Skytrain, metro, light rail system and bus services will be free to users from Saturday, transport minister Suriya Juangroongruangkit told reporters.

"We hope this policy will help reduce pollution."

Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra, who is currently attending the World Economic Forum in Switzerland, called for tougher measures to tackle pollution on Thursday, including limiting construction in the capital and seeking cooperation from nearby countries.

Regional problem

Cities in neighboring Vietnam and Cambodia also ranked high on IQAir's most-polluted list on Friday, with Ho Chi Minh second and Phnom Penh fifth.

Cambodia's environment ministry confirmed on Friday that the air quality in Phnom Penh and three other provinces had reached a "red level", meaning highly polluted.

The ministry said in a statement that the air pollution was caused by climate change, waste incineration and forest fires, and urged the public to monitor their health and avoid outdoor activities.

Air pollution has closed schools across other parts of Asia recently -- specifically Pakistan and India

Nearly two million students in and around New Delhi were told to stay home in November after authorities ordered schools to shut because of worsening air pollution.

Pakistan's most populated province of Punjab in November closed schools in smog-hit major cities for two weeks, with thousands hospitalized as air pollutants hit 30 times the level deemed acceptable by the WHO.

Bangkok's school closures come as UNICEF said in a report that 242 million children's schooling was affected by climate shocks in 2024.

Climate change can worsen the problem of air pollution which is considered a "secondary impact of climate-induced hazards", according to the report published Friday.

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Varieties

Rubbish Roads: Nepal Explores Paving with Plastic

This photograph taken on December 26, 2024 shows a worker holding shredded recyclable plastic waste at the Green Road Waste Management processing facility in Pokhara. Cars speeding along a smooth, black-colored street in Nepal's Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction. (AFP)
This photograph taken on December 26, 2024 shows a worker holding shredded recyclable plastic waste at the Green Road Waste Management processing facility in Pokhara. Cars speeding along a smooth, black-colored street in Nepal's Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction. (AFP)
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Rubbish Roads: Nepal Explores Paving with Plastic

This photograph taken on December 26, 2024 shows a worker holding shredded recyclable plastic waste at the Green Road Waste Management processing facility in Pokhara. Cars speeding along a smooth, black-colored street in Nepal's Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction. (AFP)
This photograph taken on December 26, 2024 shows a worker holding shredded recyclable plastic waste at the Green Road Waste Management processing facility in Pokhara. Cars speeding along a smooth, black-colored street in Nepal's Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction. (AFP)

Cars speeding along a smooth, black-colored street in Nepal's Pokhara are also driving over heaps of discarded plastic, transformed into an ingredient in road construction.

Nepal's urban areas generate about 5,000 tons of solid waste per day, according to the World Bank, of which 13 percent is plastic waste dumped in landfills.

While high-value plastics, like bottles, are absorbed by the recycling industry, low-value plastics -- such as multi-layered packaging -- pose a significant challenge because they don't fit into a single recycling category.

For a group of young Nepali entrepreneurs, the vast accumulation of this low-value plastic waste presented an opportunity.

"A plastic road can use even low-value plastics," said Bimal Bastola, founder of Green Road Waste Management, the organization leading the initiative in Nepal.

"We saw scope for such plastics to be utilized as a raw material, partially substituting bitumen in road construction."

Discarded packages of noodles, biscuits and other snacks move along a conveyor belt at their trash-sorting center.

The divided plastic is then put into machines to be shredded into fine pieces.

Since the early 2000s, neighboring India has been leading the world in building a network of plastic roads, even making the usage of plastic waste mandatory in roads near large cities in 2015.

A growing number of countries are experimenting with it, including nearby Bhutan and Bangladesh.

In traditional road construction, bitumen is the binding material, a tarry oil product mixed directly with hot aggregates before paving a road.

The plastic road method, however, first coats the aggregates with shredded plastic before adding bitumen.

"This method reduces the need for fresh raw materials, lowers costs, prevents water infiltration and increases road lifespan," Bastola said.

Studies show that roads paved with plastic waste can be twice as durable as normal roads.

- 'Scale up' -

Globally, only nine percent of plastic waste is recycled, while 19 percent is incinerated, and nearly half ends up in controlled landfills, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Left unchecked, the production of synthetic polymers -- the building blocks of plastics -- is expected to reach about 1.2 billion tons annually by 2060.

The plastic that accumulates in the environment is non-biodegradable, takes hundreds of years to decompose and breaks down into tiny microscopic particles.

And while Nepal banned single-use plastic bags thinner than 40 microns, that ban is not strictly implemented.

For Bastola, increasing plastic road construction is key to making the recycling of low-value plastics economically viable.

His organization says about two tons of shredded plastic is used to build a kilometer of road.

So far, the organization has completed about 10 projects totaling a little over 1.5 kilometers (one mile).

"It is happening at a small scale, we need to scale up," Bastola said. "We have to make government-level projects and we are trying to work closely with the department of roads."

A pilot project is planned this year in the capital Kathmandu at a major intersection.

"Nepal is keen on testing this technology through pilot projects," said Arjun Nepal, an engineer with the Kathmandu road department.

"But to take it forward, we need government-led standards to ensure quality."

The World Bank says life cycle analyses of plastic roads are limited and it is still not clear what environmental impacts -- if any -- recycled plastics may have when used in road construction.

"While initial anecdotes and pilot studies show promise, further research is needed to measure emissions during production, evaluate microplastic release over time and determine how these roads behave once they are decommissioned," said Valerie Hickey, global director of the World Bank's climate change group.

Despite these concerns, environmentalist Bhushan Tuladhar said that plastic roads present an important opportunity for Nepal.

"It is a low-hanging fruit to address two problems simultaneously -- the need for strong roads and the management of plastic waste -- for a developing country like Nepal," he said.