SAMUI TAKES THE LEED WITH A PIONEERING CONSERVATION PROJECT THAT'S UNIQUE IN THAILAND 

At times there can be more than a quarter of a million people on our little island. And that’s a lot. Apart from the ebb and flow of visitors, more and more businesses have sprung up. More accommodation has appeared, along with more eateries to cater for the increased population. And then there’s the associated service-industry of suppliers, wholesalers, engineers, repair shops and workers, all of which are growing proportionately. These things are certainly generating more income for Samui. But they’re generating a correspondingly larger amount of refuse, too. A generation ago this wasn’t a problem as nearly all of Samui’s refuse was adapted and used again in some way, or was organic and simply went away all by itself. There were no plastic bags from supermarkets, no stretchy plastic tags from 6-packs of beer, rope was made of hemp, not nylon, and there was no polystyrene – banana leaves (or paper) were used to wrap takeaway food. But things have changed dramatically since those days. And, three or four years back, it had become distressingly apparent that something needed to be done. It was no longer sustainable to sling our garbage over the nearest wall and forget about it.