On Apr 29th 2016, Thailand Department of Industrial Works (DIW) issued “Ministerial Order on Management of Soil and Groundwater”. The Order took effect from Oct 26th 2016, 180 days after its publication.
The Order is a supporting document to Thailand’s Factory Act. According to the Order, factories of following 12 industries are obligated to carry on pollution investigations on their soil and groundwater on a regular basis:
Factory categories (stipulated by Factory Act) | Industries |
22-(1)~(4) | Textile |
38-(1)~(2) | Pulp and paper |
42-(1)~(2) | Chemical product |
45-(1)~(3) | Paint and lacquer |
48-(1)~(4), (6), (12) | Chemical substances |
49-00 | Petroleum refinery |
60-00 | Non-ferrous metal basic industries |
74-(1), (4), (5) | Electric products |
100-(1), (2), (5) | Improving or changing qualities of products or components without production |
101-00 | Waste treatment |
105-00 | Waste sorting and landfill |
106-00 | Waste recycling and recovery |
The Order applies to all existing and new factories. For existing factories, the 1st investigation should be conducted within 180 days of the issuance of the Order and the 2nd one within 180 days after the 1st one. For factories built after the issuance of the Order, the 1st investigation should be carried out before the actual production and the 2nd one within 180 days of production. Both 1st and 2nd investigations are regarded as preliminary investigations. After this, enterprises should conduct regular investigations annually for groundwater and once every 3 years for soil. All investigation results should be reported to DIW and treatment plans must be submitted to DIW if any pollution is detected.
