Integrated Human Practices

Team Thailand-RIS and Integrated Human Practices

Integrated human practices is the lens through which the Thailand-RIS team can consolidate the purpose of our project, evaluate its impact, and expand the reach it may have, thus bringing it one step closer to being a relevant and applicable solution to the problem of plastic and microplastic pollution.

Through outreach to various members of our community and beyond, our team worked towards evaluating the benefits and harms of plastic, understanding plastic and microplastic pollution from multiple local perspectives, and gaining insights into past and current solutions and their effectiveness.

Stakeholder Feedback Application Summary

Stakeholder feedback regarding the current plastics situation in Thailand and our project was not only important in educating the public, but also in making key decisions for our project as it developed. Prior to discussing our stakeholder interactions in depth, below are a summary of the key decisions we made after taking into account stakeholder feedback:

1. Addressing lack of awareness of the extent of microplastic pollution among the general public and specialized stakeholders While reaching out to our target stakeholders, many responded saying that they were unaware of the impact of microplastics and therefore did not have any information to give us regarding the topic. In particular, agricultural stakeholder Anonymous Interviewee D reported that they had no idea that microplastics could even exist in their farm soil. This lack of awareness among multiple stakeholder groups has convinced our team to establish dialogues with those in our community in order to build a greater awareness of microplastics. Specific actions include:
   • Presentation to the Administration Committee As a part of one of our sustainability actions, our team made sure to provide crucial background information about the constant presence and exposure to microplastics in our lives without us even realizing, when presenting our sustainability proposals to our school’s administration committee.
   • RIS High School Microplastics Workshop Internal workshops aimed at teaching fundamental information about microplastic to high school students along with various fun activities. The goal of the workshops were to create awareness locally and not only focus on communities further away.
2. Addressing the ineffective Thai waste management system Thailand’s waste management system is one of competition as opposed to collaboration. Individuals have no easy access to disposal infrastructure and local authorities compete for who can collect the most waste in the short term, preventing waste from reaching already uncommon waste collection centers in order to profit from government quotas. With this insight, our team has especially emphasized a focus on passively working biofilters that deal with microplastic particles in the water that are overlooked by most people. For more information see the entrepreneurship page.Our team also reflected on the intended final application of our project and considered alternative applications, such as a more sustainable production of PET plastics, in addition to the degradation of plastics.
3. Lack of formal legislation and unwillingness to limit plastic production from companies It is undeniable that plastic is material we cannot live without, yet too much plastic can also create harm. Thailand’s plastic problem in particular is deeply rooted in a lack of formal legislation and an unwillingness to limit plastic production from plastic producing companies. This is a problem that has been attempted to be solved politically within nations and worldwide countless times by NGOs with limited success. A prime example of this is the recent Geneva UN Plastic Treaty negotiations in August 2025, which failed to create a legally binding global plastic pollution treaty because of the strong disagreements between supporting and opposing countries (UNEP, 2025). The rigid nature of policy-making at the government level has solidified our confidence in our highly ambitious topic as a different approach to solving the plastic problem. This also informed another aspect of the final application of our project–the creation of the business plan–in order to increase the incentive and ease for companies to implement sustainable plastic waste management via our biofilter model.

Key Stakeholder Perspectives

The heart of integrated human practices is in reaching out and interacting with various stakeholders, thereby expanding our perspective as well as understanding of the problem and solution. In doing so, we can incorporate a diverse range of views into our ultimate vision and purpose of our project. To begin, our team has identified key stakeholders that can affect or be affected by plastic, in terms of production, consumption, health, the environment, and expertise.

These stakeholders can be categorized into scientific and/or environmental experts; plastic producers; healthcare experts and those affected by plastic pollution health-wise; members of the agricultural industry; members of the fishing industry; water filtration companies and water treatment facilities; and the general public. The table below summarizes the relevance and impact of our project to these stakeholders and vice versa.

All of these perspectives, especially from a local angle, are crucial in our efforts to assess the impact, including the severity, of plastic pollution on the various sectors of both the economy and society. Moreover, they can inform the intended future steps and application of our project, while allowing us to effectively analyze its strengths as well as limitations.

Conversations with the NSTDA

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Fig. 1 iGEM IHP Cycle

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One stakeholder perspective that we were able to have a conversation with prior to finalizing our engineering plan was the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA), in order to gain a synthetic biology-focused perspective on the feasibility of our plan for the project.

On March 11, 2025, the Thailand-RIS team had a Zoom meeting with NSTDA. We first introduced ourselves and gave a brief overview of what iGEM was, what we’ve done in the past years, and our potential project idea for this year – addressing the issue of microplastics via the transfer of the production of PETase and related enzymes to a plant host. The three professors suggested that we focus on narrowing down the scope of the idea and asked us questions to consider when doing so. Some of these questions were: do we want to focus on microplastics in the soil or in water? If we are focusing on water, then are we thinking of saltwater or freshwater environments? They also emphasized considering the life cycle of the plant that would express the enzymes, as different plants have varying growth rates and environmental tolerances. A major point of discussion was selecting an appropriate plant model. They suggested Arabidopsis thaliana as a potential candidate for water environments due to its well-documented genetics and ease of manipulation. For soil environments, they proposed considering legumes. The team also discussed whether to express the enzymes in the roots of the plant, either through stable or transient expression and what vector and promoter would be most effective.

Aside from the science aspect of our project, we were also able to gain insights into the implications of microplastics on plants and the environment. We were advised to research the natural interactions between plants and microplastics, particularly the findings from studies such as those by PNNL, which showed that microplastics accumulate at plant root tips rather than being absorbed into the plant cells. This raises concerns about food safety, soil pollution, and human health, reinforcing the need to understand how plants interact with microplastics before implementing our project. Moving forward from this point, we took the steps needed to finalize the details of our project so that we could propose to a wider audience and provide insights for the next steps to refine our project.

Based on the information obtained from this meeting, our team was able to refine and solidify the design of our project. Our long term focus was shifted to the bioremediation of aquatic environments, although our plant chassis was limited to Nicotiana benthamiana for ease of use as a proof of concept as well as to follow iGEM’s safety standards for high school teams. In terms of our experiment, we decided to perform both transient and stable transformation, although we later found that our stable transformation attempts were unsuccessful. Taking into account the fact that microplastics accumulate at plant root tips, especially for the water hyacinth, our future steps would involve the localization of the PETase gene expression to the roots–this aspect was not implemented to our current design in order to maximize the production of PETase in the plant and increases our chances of detecting and showcasing its functionality.

Following this meeting, our team had a second conversation with the NSTDA on July 3rd, by which point we were well into our lab work. We were able to receive positive feedback for our experimental design and purpose, with a consideration for the type of promoter we may use–inducible or constitutive–for our ultimate engineered plant. Another aspect they asked us to consider was the prevention of GMO release. To ensure proper risk management of our engineered plant, our team incorporated limitations to the final application, restricting it to enclosed, controlled environments such as greenhouses, labs, indoor farms, and water treatment facilities. It is also important to note that our choice of a plant chassis, rather than a bacterial or other microorganism one, reflects our commitment to responsibility, as plants will be more easily maintained and controlled even without specialized knowledge in lab practices.

Prompted by our questions, the NSTDA also shared their knowledge about the plastic pollution situation in Thailand. They mentioned the lack of laws and regulations regarding microplastics, with the only two laws existing in the Thai law system being the 2020 law banning plastic microbeads from cosmetics, and the 2025 law banning the import of plastic waste. The NSTDA emphasized the importance of advocating for laws surrounding food safety and especially the contamination of food products with microplastics in the agriculture and fishing sectors. We also shared our work regarding human practices and engagement, and they were able to provide us with multiple contacts that we subsequently interviewed. The NSTDA noted that we should be mindful of human ethics when interviewing or interacting with stakeholders, which consolidated our previous practices of providing our interviewees with a consent form to maintain responsible conduct. Their feedback also helped us to later focus and narrow down our stakeholder list, with a rationale for how we planned to use the data we obtained from an interview.

Overall, the expertise and support provided by the NSTDA allowed our team to follow through with our lab and human practices, and not only contributed direct information about plastics, but connected us to Dr. Witchuda Daud and Dr. Wijarn Simachaya, who further provided us with more specific information about the topics discussed below.

Identifying the Importance of Plastic as a Crucial Material

Despite the heavy stigma surrounding plastic as a major pollutant, plastic continues to be integral in our daily lives, as well as economy and infrastructure. Our work in outreach and conducting interviews has allowed our team to view plastics through various perspectives, which added a nuance to the general 2D perception of plastics as being only a major environmental pollutant.

For one, globally, plastics remain one of the most prominent materials in construction, healthcare, packaging, and many other industries. The heavy reliance stems from the versatility of the material, its ability to be produced in mass quantities for relatively low prices, and the array of single-use products that are not only convenient but necessary for sanitary purposes in especially hospital and laboratory settings. Dr. Witchuda Daud, a prominent researcher at the National Metal and Materials Technology Center (MTEC) and former head of the Plastics Technology Laboratory revealed to our team in an interview the many benefits of plastics. For example, in Thailand, the plastics industry makes up roughly 7.3% of Thailand’s GDP, translating to roughly 38 billion dollars. Additionally, the plastics industry has also created around 400,000 jobs in Thailand, further supporting plastic’s value in the lives of many people. Rather than solely basing solutions on the elimination of plastics–a near impossible feat for the foreseeable future without reverting back to a pre-industrialization society–Dr. Daud shared her perspective on the importance of plastic innovation and design as the foundation for a new generation of plastic production. While the environmental impact is greatest at the end-of-life phase of plastic products, as seen with Fig. 2, the most effective approach to reducing this impact would be to implement responsible design practices at the start of the life cycle of plastic. Reflecting on her work and experiences, she emphasized the necessity of more sustainable forms of plastic that are easier to recycle and less toxic to the environment, while also maintaining their structural integrity and functionality in serving their purpose. Plastic, if handled properly, has the potential to coexist with nature.

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Fig. 2 A graph shared by Dr. Witchuda Daud in our interview

Interview with Dr. Witchuda Daud

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Understanding the Extent of the Plastic Problem in Thailand

When thinking about plastic waste, people imagine large piles of plastic bottles and trash in clear open areas and oceans, ready to be collected. Yet the reality of plastics in Thailand, as well as worldwide, is far from that. In an interview with Dr. Aopeau Imvittaya, a scientist specializing in polymer science and analytical chemistry fields at the Department of Science Service, she stated that microplastic samples were detected along the coastal areas of Lipe Island in Satun province (southern Thailand). In her investigation, she and her team were able to detect an average of 0.12 ± 0.04 particles/m3 of microplastics between the sizes of 1 mm and 5 mm, and an average of 0.30 ± 0.12 particles/m3 of microplastics that were less than 1 mm and greater than 300 µm. While the concentration of microplastics found is fairly low, Dr. Imvittaya notes that this concentration will likely be higher during the monsoon season, when the winds will cause high amounts of plastic to wash up on shore. In either case, it is still alarming to discover that microplastics have become so widespread that they are being detected in places that are known for having clear waters, such as Lipe Island, which is also a tourist destination. This highlights the severity of the plastic waste problem in Thailand as an invisible environmental issue.

This new understanding of plastic waste, in particular microplastics, has allowed our team to understand that part of solving the plastic problem is by managing it passively at the molecular level, whether it be through advanced filtration systems, or in our case, genetically modified PETase producing plants that can internally degrade PET microplastics. The insights gained from this stakeholder interaction allowed our team to confirm that our project engineering was heading in the right direction. In addition, it encouraged our work in sustainable development in considering all the sources of plastic pollution from our individual lives and team practices, which led to our push for change in our school’s plastic usage. Moreover, the prevalence of microplastics in waterways in Thailand directed our entrepreneurship work as well as vision and outlook by informing the need for aquatic-based approaches, especially with water hyacinth modeling. It also consolidates the purpose and importance of our project in addressing a truly significant and detrimental issue in Thailand and beyond.

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Interview with Dr. Aopeau Imvittaya

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Realities of Plastic Production Patterns in Thailand

How is the plastic pollution situation reflected by the plastic production patterns in Thailand? As Dr. Daud mentioned in her interview, the most significant solution to plastic pollution is not in recycling, but in reducing production and ensuring that all production of plastic is done in a responsible manner. To evaluate this perspective and gain a better understanding of plastic production in Thailand, our team talked to two individuals working in the plastics industry. For their privacy, they will be referred to as Anonymous Interviewee A and Anonymous Interviewee B.

Anonymous Interviewee A specifically works with the production of plastic beads, while Anonymous Interviewee B is the owner of a packaging company. One of the things they mentioned was the decrease in plastic manufacturing in Thailand as a result of competition from Chinese manufacturers that produce similar products at a lower cost.

In addition, while green innovation and sustainable practices appear to be on the rise in the industry, the changes occurring in Thailand are very minimal. Anonymous Interviewee A specifically mentioned that bio-recycling beads are too expensive for the general consumer, which emphasizes the continual prioritization of cheaper products over sustainable ones in the country. Conversely, Anonymous Interviewee B stated that the packaging industry was experiencing a shift from plastic to glass containers in some cases. However, they also noted that plastic containers are still very much prevalent because of their advantages–a primary one being, again, the lower cost. Both interviewees shared that they did not see a potential in sustainable plastic development, and as such, focused their efforts on increasing the sustainability of the production process, rather than the product itself. This reflects the difficulty in developing sustainable forms of plastic mentioned by Dr. Daud. While it remains a goal and work-in-progress for scientists like her, this view is not reciprocated by plastic manufacturers, which highlights the possible knowledge gap between those in the scientific community and those outside, as well as the differences in values.

Lastly, Anonymous Interviewees A and B indicated their knowledge of the many sustainability roadmaps created by the Thai Government, especially in conjunction with non-profit organizations, such as those shared by Dr. Simachaya. They expressed that a key setback to the ineffectiveness of these guidelines then, is that such roadmaps do not translate into law-binding regulations.

This illustrates the need for government and legislative backing of these sustainability targets. Unfortunately, even our project faces legal complications as the cultivation of GMOs for purposes other than research is prohibited. While our team cannot directly address this, we would like to emphasize the importance of advocacy towards these issues, especially as the synthetic biology industry expands in Thailand.

Assessing the Hidden Harms Beyond the Plastic Product

Another perspective on the negative impact of the plastic industry comes from GreenPeace Thailand, a branch of a global organization devoted to protecting the environment and promoting peace via public campaigns. While the Thailand-RIS team was unable to directly speak with and interview the organization due to their unavailability, they sent us some of their research.

In a paper titled “The Cost of Inaction,” GreenPeace considers the harms stemming from the process of plastic production, rather than only from the plastic product itself. From fossil fuel extraction to waste management, the full life cycle of plastic has consequences relating to not only the environment, but the human sector involved in the production of plastic and the communities that surround it. One step of the plastic production line takes place in petrochemical plants, which release toxic Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) into the air and affect the health of the adjacent communities. They give the example of the Map Ta Phut area of Rayong Province in Thailand, which has been recorded to consistently exceed safety standard levels of benzene. Moreover, the plastic production process releases other types of pollutants including lead and other heavy metals. The safety of these communities are also compromised by the fact that plastic factories are prone to fires and explosions. This relates to one of the points made by Dr. Daud that the EOL (end of life) plastic sectors, particularly in contaminant separation, can pose dangers to those working in it.

“The solution we are [working on] now, with our capability, [addresses the problem of] how people can work safely in the EOL sectors, how they separate contaminants, and how we can make this secondary raw material [or recycled plastic] safe [so that] it can reenter the economic system.” - Dr. Witchuda Daud

This stresses the importance of the production of plastic in addressing the aforementioned concerns, on top of plastic pollution. Based on this information, another application of our engineered plant in conjunction with bioremediation may be the production of plastic via recycling. As stated by multiple interviewees, plastic is fundamental to many sectors of the economy as well as the individual’s life, and therefore plastic production–especially of necessities such as disposable gloves and syringes used in hospitals–will inevitably continue until a viable replacement can be found. Therefore, as an alternative to producing new plastic from fossil fuels, plastic waste can be the source of materials needed to re-produce plastic. This would be distinct from the current methods of recycling which, as mentioned by Dr. Daud, are imperfect and heavily depend on the recyclability of specific products–this may be influenced by factors such as color and misuse of the product during its service life. The enzyme central to our plant system is PETase, which hydrolyzes PET polymers into MHET and BHET. While our main intention is to later incorporate the MHETase enzyme into our plant chassis so as to further degrade these units into non-toxic products (ethylene glycol and terephthalic acid), these products can also, once purified, be used to generate new PET plastic (Gowda et al., 2023). This method–if further work is done to increase the efficiency of our engineered plant and to collect the products of hydrolysis–may be useful in the search for a more sustainable way of recycling PET plastic.

Evaluating the Effectiveness of Thailand’s Waste Management System

Understanding current waste management systems in Thailand is crucial towards identifying areas our project can support or possibly replace as a better alternative.

First, it is important to note the short service life of many plastic products in contrast to their lengthy degradation process, which has led to the widespread pollution of plastics that we often hear about. As Dr. Witchuda Daud said, “PET and similar polymers have a very short life cycle.” On average, it takes around 3 months from production for PET products to end up in the landfill. The primary solution at the forefront of public campaigns is recycling and reduction. However, a closer inspection of these solutions reveal that they are far from perfect. During the interview, Dr. Daud mentioned the difficulties of not only implementing proper plastic disposal, collecting plastic, and recycling them, but also how “we can make this recycled plastic re-enter the system.” One, the voluntary recycling system in Thailand requires an individual to sort through their rubbish and correctly dispose of plastic and other materials in their corresponding bins. The lack of a physical incentive, in addition to the limited availability of adequate recycling bins, decreases a person’s willingness to sort their waste. Dr. Daud identifies that an increased ease of access may be the next step for recycling initiatives, saying that “you have to first understand peoples’ behavior, then put the tools in their path.” Moreover, the recycling process does not end at the recycling bin, but rather involves the management and transportation of the plastic waste to a recycling facility. Even in this, Thailand faces the political difficulty of coordinating cooperative efforts to ensure that plastic waste does not leak into the environment, but rather, safely arrives at the proper disposal or collection centers.

Our team’s interview with Dr. Wijarn Simachaya, president of the Thailand Environmental Institute Foundation, revealed many valuable insights about the current state of Thailand’s waste management system. The main takeaway from this interview was Thailand's lack of an adequate nationwide waste management system, with the government instead leaving local authorities in charge of waste management, who sometimes outsource their work to private companies. These claims are further supported by the interview with Dr. Witchuda Daud. According to her, local administrators and organizations sometimes even compete over garbage and discourage citizens from directly disposing their waste to collection centers in order to personally profit from fulfilling government garbage objectives and quotas. This has resulted in local authorities adopting a larger focus towards collecting plastic waste as opposed to effective plastic waste treatment. As of 2025, it is important to note that waste management laws are being updated to require condominium residents to sort their waste to reduce fees and avoid penalties, which shows some movement towards progress (EnviX, 2025).

For the most part however, efforts to deal with problems of ineffective waste management systems in Thailand come instead in the form of several proposed sustainable economic models and frameworks.

Dr. Simachaya specifically advocates for the Roadmap for Plastic Waste Management 2018-2030, which in summary aims to reduce and eventually phase out certain types of plastic in favor of more environmentally friendly materials. Furthermore, Dr. Simachaya has also experimented with similar circular economic models such as what our team will call the “Lanta Model,” after the island the framework was based upon. This framework proposes a circular economic model involving principles of keeping recyclable materials like plastic in circulation for as long as possible. The difference between the Lanta Model and other circular economic models is that this one attempts to prioritize collaboration between both formal and informal sectors in achieving a more sustainable, less environmentally destructive model.

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Interview with Dr. Wijarn Simachaya

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Closing the Feedback Loop

Considering the expertise of our second stakeholder group in the area of plastics and the management methods that currently exist, we also wanted to take the interviews as an opportunity to establish a two-way conversation and receive direct feedback on our project. As a closure to the interviews, we outlined our progress for creating a proof of concept and the vision we had for its future steps, in order to gain a perspective on whether this solution had the potential to be effective, especially in comparison to those that already exist.

Overall, from our three main interviews, we received positive feedback for our solution. Taking into account what we discussed about the difficulty of managing plastic after its service life, Dr. Aopeau Imvittaya, Dr. Witchuda Daud, and Dr. Wijarn Simachaya felt that our project could be a welcome solution for actually breaking down plastic without having to recycle it. Dr. Imvittaya commented that our project had a potential for success, and that our next steps would be to collect more data to determine and quantify the effectiveness of our solution at eliminating microplastics. Considering the innate self-sufficiency of a plant, we can hypothesize that our bioremediation approach can be integrated into pre-existing water treatment facilities as well as a variety of other water systems in different infrastructures. The economic and entrepreneurship standpoints have been assessed in more detail in their corresponding pages. To meet the overflowing demands of plastic waste management however, including the plastic that already exists in landfills and is continued to be produced everyday, a specialized facility hosting our engineered plants may be needed. Especially with the limited space dedicated to recycling in Thailand, as Dr. Daud mentioned, an important consideration for the future of our project is its feasibility in terms of scale expansion. This point has also been explored through the lens of entrepreneurship, as a business model is a necessary step towards realistically expanding the scientific aspect of our project. In particular, the unwillingness of many plastic companies in implementing changes that may compromise the low cost of their product can be addressed by increasing the accessibility to sustainable solutions. Our biofilter concept may not directly address plastic production, but it can be implemented into the waste water management systems of plastic production factories so as to mitigate the risk of releasing microplastics into the environment.

Challenges and Barriers

Despite the importance of all the stakeholder groups previously identified, our team has experienced many obstacles when it comes to interviewing many of these stakeholder groups. For one, many of the listed groups have reportedly stated that they were completely unaware about the potential impact of plastic waste in their lives. For example when attempting to reach out to multiple farmers regarding their experience with microplastics in agriculture, one farmer stated that he was uninformed that microplastics could get into food or the soil; with more similar feedback from other stakeholder groups including. These statements lie in stark contrast to the research conducted by more scientific and environmental stakeholders which report the tremendous impact of plastics in fishing, agriculture, and health of communities.

This limited understanding of plastics among many stakeholder groups highlights the necessity of wider campaigns to raise awareness about this issue. Our outreach efforts are not only an opportunity for us to gather perspectives on the issue of microplastics, but also work to educate the public about the invisible presence of plastic in their lives. As such, the Thailand-RIS team worked to establish two-way conversations in which we were able to learn about the problem to a greater depth as well as share our knowledge and solution for microplastics.

Responsibility: Ethical Considerations

A crucial aspect to carrying out interviews is keeping in mind ethical considerations so as to maintain the integrity and value the privacy of interviewees. To do so, our interviewees were asked to fill out a Google form that allowed them to consent to or not consent to, for example, the recording and publishing of the interview on our Wiki. A free-response section was also included to allow the interviewees to mention any concerns or special requests, such as the blurring of their face. The form also provided background information of our team, iGEM, our project, and what the interview would be used for, in order to enable the interviewees to make an informed decision.

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By establishing these connections and building a positive relationship with our interviewees, our team hopes to have created an expertise base that can inform the future steps of our project.

Reflection & Next Steps

As much as our reach towards many of the relevant stakeholder groups was limited, we were able to gain a deeper understanding of the extent of the plastic pollution problem, plastic production patterns, and the waste management system in Thailand through contrasting perspectives. Our stakeholder feedback was incorporated throughout our project, from informing engineering decisions regarding design and execution, pushing for more robust sustainability practices within our team, all the way to shaping the intended purpose and final application of our engineered plant.

However, in order to acquire a more comprehensive understanding of this large topic of plastic pollution and how our project may directly impact stakeholder groups–such as the agricultural sector, fishing sector and water treatment facilities/water treatment companies–our team aims to take the following next steps to integrate more stakeholder perspectives into our project.

From a scientific perspective, we hope to gather more information to reconsider, solidify, and progress our project in the following aspects:

• The plant species of our chassis
• The localization of the expression of the PETase gene

From the information we currently have, we determined that the water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) is the most suitable chassis for the best application in Thailand. This aligns with another future step of our project, based on the feedback from the NSTDA about localizing the gene expression to the roots in order to minimize the effect the production of PETase may have on plant growth. However, a goal would be to incorporate more expert views on these matters.

From an entrepreneurial perspective, specific information from water treatment facilities and water filtration companies about:

• the effectiveness of water treatment facilities in filtering out microplastics
• how the facility is structured and where our biofilter system may be located
• and the different steps of water treatment

can allow us to gauge where and how our engineered plants can be used to remove microplastics from the water, both step-wise and location-wise. This knowledge can inform our final design and application of our project, including considerations of the use of other plant species as the chassis.

As a final reflection on our attempted outreach efforts that were met with no response, different approaches will be used in the hopes of increasing the success of reaching these stakeholders. One, we will contact associations of our previously interviewed stakeholders; two, we can conduct a more robust general public survey via access to public spaces; and three, offer anonymized comment forms through emails to garner responses with less time commitment. While the gaps in our overall outreach creates an uncertainty in the direction our project might head towards in the future, with our continued efforts, we will strive to close these gaps and offer a more diversified justification for our future steps. Regardless, based on the wide scope and impact of plastic pollution on our country and world, our team sincerely believes that our project is a responsible and good step towards a better world.

References:

1. EnviX, A. (2025). Thailand, Bangkok Waste Fee Policy | Enviliance ASIA. Enviliacne ASIA. https://enviliance.com/regions/southeast-asia/th/th-waste/th-bangkok-waste-fee-policy
2. Gowda, Omkar D. (2023). Molecular docking analysis of PET with MHET. Bioinformation, 19(3), 255–259. https://doi.org/10.6026/97320630019255
3. UNEP. (2025). Second Part of the Fifth Session. UNEP - UN Environment Programme. https://www.unep.org/inc-plastic-pollution/session-5.2