It is difficult to collect them, too, as the bread absorbs the water and sinks into the river. “If you float somewhere with no fish, those floats will cause pollution in the water. Such an approach is not helpful, said Wijarn Simachaya, president of Thailand Environment Institute. “They prefer fancy floats made of ice-cream cones and bread because they can feed the fish at the same time.” “COVID-19 causes the economy to be sluggish, so people prefer saving their money and floating online instead,” she said.Īt the same time, children are uninterested in banana-leaf floats, the main natural alternative to Styrofoam, she said. Sales of materials for krathongs have been slow this year due to the pandemic, said Nopparat Tangtonwong, a vendor at Pak Klong market, famous for selling flowers. “We depend on clean water for our livelihood and the aim of Loy Krathong should be to protect and rejuvenate our rivers without putting anything in them.” “We should not release any floats, because even if they are made from natural materials, the amount of them exceeds what rivers can naturally deal with.” “We need to revolutionize the practice, allowing the ecosystem of the waterways to be restored,” said Tara Buakamsri, Thailand country director for the environmental group Greenpeace. The total number of krathongs collected in Bangkok has fallen from over 900,000 in 2012 to just over 490,000 last year, and there has been an even sharper reduction in the number of floats made of Styrofoam, from 131,000 to under 18,000 over the same period.Įven so, some conservationists advocate a more radical solution. The number of endangered sea creatures found dead ashore, which he believes stems from the problem of ocean trash in Thailand, doubled from 2017 to 2020.Īctivists have noted a change in people’s behavior over decades, pointing to rising awareness of the damage krathongs cause.
Thon Thamrongnawasawat, a leading Thai marine biologist, said getting people to stop using harmful materials such as polystyrene foam - Styrofoam - for their floats remains the priority because they cause the most damage to the water and aquatic life.
The festival is celebrated on the night of the full moon of the 12th lunar month, which traditionally marks the end of the rainy season.
The Loy Krathong festival allows believers to symbolically float their misfortunes away on “krathongs” and start another year of life with a clean slate. Within hours, workers began trawling the rivers to fish out the offerings, as paying tribute to the divinity is increasingly proving to be ecologically hazardous. BANGKOK (AP) - Thais flocked to rivers and lakes on Friday evening to release small floats adorned with flowers and candles in an annual festival honoring the goddess of water, with thousands of the tiny boats ending up clogging and polluting the country’s waterways.