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BANGKOK (AP) – Thais flocked to rivers and lakes Friday evening to release tiny swimmers adorned with flowers and candles at an annual festival in honor of the goddess of water, with thousands of the tiny boats clogging and polluting the country’s waterways.
Within a few hours, workers began searching the rivers to fish out the offerings, as paying tribute to the deity is becoming increasingly environmentally dangerous.
The Loy Krathong Festival enables the believers to symbolically wash away their misfortune on “Krathongs” and to start a new year of life with a clean slate. The festival is celebrated on the full moon night of the 12th lunar month, which traditionally marks the end of the rainy season.
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a leading Thai marine biologist, said getting people not to use harmful materials such as expanded polystyrene – Styrofoam – on their swimmers was still a priority as they cause the greatest harm to water and aquatic life. The number of endangered marine life found dead on land, which he believes is due to the marine litter problem in Thailand, doubled from 2017 to 2020.
Activists have noted changes in human behavior over decades, pointing to a growing awareness of the damage krathongs cause. The total number of krathongs collected in Bangkok has dropped from over 900,000 in 2012 to just over 490,000 last year, and the number of styrofoam swimmers has dropped even more from 131,000 to under 18,000 over the same period.
Nevertheless, some conservationists advocate a more radical solution.
“We have to revolutionize the practice so that the ecosystem of the waterways can be restored,” said Tara Buakamsri, Thai country director of the environmental group Greenpeace. “We shouldn’t release swimmers, because even if they are made of natural materials, their amount exceeds what rivers can naturally handle.”
“We depend on clean water for a living and Loy Krathong’s goal should be to protect and rejuvenate our rivers without harming them.”
Selling of materials for krathongs has been slow this year due to the pandemic, said Nopparat Tangtonwong, a seller at Pak Klong market known for selling flowers.
“COVID-19 is causing the economy to be sluggish so people prefer to save their money and float online instead,” she said.
At the same time, kids aren’t interested in banana leaf floats, the main natural alternative to styrofoam, she said. “They prefer unusual poses made from ice cream cones and bread because they can feed the fish at the same time.”
Such an approach is not helpful, said Wijarn Simachaya, president of the Thailand Environment Institute. “If you swim anywhere without fish, those swimmers will pollute the water. Picking up is also difficult as the bread soaks up the water and sinks into the river. “
“Also, sellers usually add chemical paints to these floats that are harmful to the water,” he said.
Banana leaves are the best krathong material because they don’t decompose too quickly and can be used to make fertilizer once they are collected, Wijarn said.
“Having a virtual Loy Krathong celebration is another great solution to avoid environmental damage, especially during the COVID-19 outbreak, but I don’t think it can satisfy people’s lifestyle as they still want to enjoy the festival “, he said.
Late on Friday evening after people have floated away their worries, urban workers come out to shovel a sea of swimmers that have drifted along the canals and down the Chao Phraya River before decomposing and polluting the water.
Dozens of small boats traveled along the river, each carrying about half a dozen people with hand nets. The boats then took their catch to a moored mothership, where it was dumped into a large shredder, compacted, and carried away by garbage trucks to a landfill on a landfill.
“We hope that this year the number of Krathongs made with Styrofoam will continue to decline and will be fewer than last year. And we will finish our clean-up work before 5am, ”said Chatree Wattanakhajorn, a senior Bangkok official.
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