Environmental activists are in two minds about where Thailand stands in the global push to eliminate hazardous substances that pollute the air when solid waste and garbage are burnt as a form of disposal.

On the one hand, they are cheering the Thai government's decision to sign an international convention to protect human health and the environment from persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

On the other hand, the activists are questioning the Thai government's plans to build more incinerators as a form of disposing waste.

A ranking member of Thailand's pollution control board told a regional workshop on POPs that began here Wednesday that Bangkok would be ready to sign the Stockholm Convention on POPs by June.

''It is a significant step, for it appears that Thailand will not only sign the convention but also ratify it soon, making it the first in Asia to go as far,'' says Von Hernandez, Asia co-ordinator of the toxics campaign at Greenpeace International, the global environmental lobby.

At present, 117 countries, including many from Asia such as Malaysia, South Korea, the Philippines, Indonesia and India, have signed the convention that was adopted in Sweden in May 2001.

But only six nations, none of which are from Asia, have ratified the document that seeks to rid the environment of 12 toxic chemicals, including aldrin, chlordane, DDT, doxins and furans.

Wrong direction

Despite Thailand's good record in making a commitment to work against POPs, it does not score as well in the area of harmful waste disposal.

''Building incinerators to burn waste and garbage is a step in the wrong direction,'' says Tara Buakamsri, toxics campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia. ''Thailand has to ensure that the spirit and intent of the convention are not undermined.''

Already, Bangkok's governing body has included the construction of four incinerators in its master plan for managing waste in the Thai capital. And so far, the national government has approved plans for one of them as part of a 7.6 billion-baht (US$172.6 million) waste disposal facility.

The approved disposal facility is expected to handle 2,000 tonnes of waste a day. Bangkok, a sprawling metropolis of some seven million people, currently generates more than 9,000 tonnes of waste a day, a number that is expected to rise to 12,000 tonnes of waste per day over the next five years.

All of the waste the city currently produces s role

What is required, argue environmentalists like Hernandez, are government policies and investment to promote alternative waste management techniques like recycling and composting.

''The best approach is a community-based approach, where municipalities rationalise their waste management policies,'' says Luscombe.

The Stockholm Convention, he adds, calls on developing countries like Thailand to avoid the mistakes of the industrialised countries ''in terms of investing in polluting processes like incineration'' and push for other processes ''which do not generate toxics pollution''.

For local environmentalists like Tara, the Thai government has only to look in its own backyard for a successful example of an alternative waste management initiative.

The people of Phitsanulok, a province in north-central Thailand, have ''one of the best programmes to recycle waste'', he says, one that involves people at the community level. ''They have been at it for the last seven years and have succeeded in achieving 40 percent recycling of waste.''