I've been living in Thailand for a little over a year now, but my reaction when I see or am offered a small plastic bag to wrap around and carry cups or cans purchased at a 7-11, café or store is still the same: What is this?(!) What a waste!

These plastic bags are everywhere in Thailand, but I never saw one before moving here. More to the point: They are completely unnecessary - you don't need a small bag to carry a cup you could easily hold in your hand.

I know it may be "too soon" to ban all plastic bags in Thailand (one can dream!)... But I think a small step toward this goal of eliminating unnecessary plastic bags here is an achievable one. Stop making them, stop giving them away at café and convenience store counters and I guarantee people will stop using them.  It's already working in California and France for all plastic bags.  The least we could do is work to limit extreme wastefulness of plastic and ban small plastic bags like these, which are so beyond nonessential and don't do anything except harm our environment.

They are ubiquitous now, but they don't have to be if we ban them. This small change can reduce the catastrophic amount of plastic waste that is destroying our environment and hopefully lead to greater efforts in this area.

Sign this petition if you want to urge the Thai government to take this seriously - and ban small "cup-carry" plastic bags forever! You really don't need them, and neither does our planet.

IN THAI:

ลงนามในคำร้องนี้ถ้าคุณต้องการที่จะเรียกร้องให้รัฐบาลไทยจะใช้เวลานี้อย่างจริงจัง - และห้ามเล็ก "ถ้วยพก" ถุงพลาสติกตลอดไป! คุณจริงๆไม่จำเป็นต้องพวกเขาและไม่ไม่ดาวเคราะห์ของเรา