- Everyday items that are discarded need to be collected separately as of type and deposited in the right place as described below.
- To collect garbage before depositing, please use plastic bags. Do collect the plastic bags received when shopping, or buy bags from a shop. Plastic bags specifically for garbage disposal are black and can be bought at any supermarket or department store, but you may use any type of plastic bag to collect and dispose of garbage. We are happy to freely provide small to medium-sized plastic bags to guests and tenants if they don't have such bags available.
- Commonly, garbage will be separately collected into 3 types:
• Organic waste (e.g., fruit, vegetables, cereals, eggshells) excluding fish and meat;
• dry recyclable waste (e.g., glass bottles, aluminum cans, hard plastic, plastic bottles, soft plastic excluding plastic foils and films);
• all other types (residual waste, including plastic foils and films). - Organic waste: This can be collected over the day, usually in a bin next to the kitchen, and should be moved to one of our compost heaps, preferably in the evening, so that organic waste does not remain inside a room overnight. This is to keep animals (e.g., ants, cockroaches, snails) out of any living or interior area. Discarded food like fish and meat, please, give to eat to our cats or dog, and if there is anything left, put it into a separate small plastic bag, tie it up tightly, and dispose of this bag into our garbage disposal hut. Plain thin or thick cardboard (without printed surface layers, without adhesive strips or labels), paper (newspaper, but not from magazines and not glossy paper), and wooden waste (but not liquid-tight cases or boxes such as milk carton boxes and boxes coated with plastic) can be, if torn into small handy parts, moved to the compost heap, but please remove all plastic and metallic parts, which must not be on the compost heap.
Compost heaps: The main compost heap for general organic waste (left in the picture), a special heap for bamboo culms (right in the picture), and for short-cut thin tree branches and coconut shells (on the rear of the bamboo heap) - Food waste is organic waste. If food waste from the kitchen is stored in plastic bags for more than 1 day or in the trash can for too long, anaerobic bacteria inevitably decompose the organic matter. Food waste should therefore be brought to the compost heap on a daily basis in the evening so that no anaerobic bacteria can develop, since only anaerobic bacteria produce unpleasant odors. In a properly treated compost heap, all organic matter is decomposed by aerobic bacteria that do not produce an unpleasant odor. Tenants are asked to cover the organic kitchen waste deposited in the compost heap with other materials, preferably with leaves already on the compost heap. This can be done with a rake (located in the storage hut behind Lychee Lodge).
- Coconut shells can go to the rear of the special compost heap containing hard-to-decompose material such as bamboo. This heap is on the right side of the compost heap for organic waste (see photo above).
- Cardboard and paper waste is organic waste. However, it is only sensibly compostable if it contains no glossy surfaces (such as magazines and advertising catalogs) and is free of any plastic (such as packaging tape) and metal staples. It also needs to be cut into pieces that are not too large. You can do this with a carpet knife or place the cardboard in the concrete water container (located behind the storage hut attached to Lychee Lodge). Wet cardboard can then be easily torn into small pieces by hand.
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Cardboard can be cut with a carpet knife (1st photo)
or torn by hand if soaked in water (2nd photo).
Plastic packaging tape and metal staples must be removed from the cardboard and discarded in the waste container located in the storage hut (3rd photo).
The cardboard must be torn into small (hand-sized) pieces before being put on the garbage heap for organic waste (4th photo). - Dry recyclable waste can be collected in a plastic bag over the course of several days. It can be sorted by type, though this is not required. The main types of dry recyclable waste are as follows:
• Glass bottles of any type, size, or color are heavy and should be placed in a strong plastic bag or a sack.
• Beer cartons (e.g., from brands like Chang, Leo, or Singha), including the empty bottles inside, are the only recyclable items that can be left directly on the bamboo shelf in front of the entrance gate, as they are highly likely to be collected by independent waste pickers. Please note that these cartons should be placed there on Tuesday morning or early Wednesday morning, and ensure that it is not raining — otherwise, the cardboard will become soggy. To protect them from rain, you can also place the beer carton inside a transparent plastic bag.
• Aluminum cans (primarily beer cans) should be flattened before being placed into a plastic bag.
• Large, thick cardboard boxes must be broken down or cut into small, flat pieces, which are then placed into a large plastic bag. It's best to use a utility knife for cutting.
• Large items made of hard plastic, such as damaged plastic chairs, must be broken down into smaller pieces so that they fit into a large plastic bag.
• All other recyclable items should also be placed in a plastic bag. These recyclable materials include, among other things, a wide variety of soft plastics, such as plastic bottles, foam packaging, and plastic bags, as well as tin cans.Recycling center in Ban Pa Pong - Our tenants are free to take all recyclables collected at Baan Sammi and deliver them to a commercial recycling center. Examples of preferred recyclable materials include glass bottles, plastic bottles, rigid PVC, cardboard, aluminum, iron, and steel.
The nearest recycling center is located in the village of Ban Pa Pong (บ้านป่าป้อง) and named as follows:
ร้าน ภิญโญพาณิชย์ (Ran Phinyophanit), ป่าป้องของเก่า (Pa Pong Khong Kao),
phone 084-6162655, open every weekday except Wednesday from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Purchase prices are consistently low; however, slightly better prices are paid for aluminum cans and for beer bottles of a specific brand when returned in a beer carton of the same brand — so it is worth collecting and returning these. Plastic bags and plastic film are generally not accepted.
Location: On country road #1014 in the center of Ban Pa Pong (บ้านป่าป้อง), 180 m south of the Ban Pa Pong Police Guard House (ป้อมยามบ้านป่าป้อง). On Google Maps, the company is named "ภิญโญพาณิชย์" (Phinyophanit) and displayed well at zoom level 17. - Hazardous waste such as batteries, LED, and neon lamps should be disposed of in a specific red container. Until 2021, such a container was located on the side of a road junction in the middle of the nearby village of Ban Pa Tio, only 350 m from the main gate of Baan Sammi, as shown in the two photos below. However, this specific container has been removed from this location. It is now probably in a different location somewhere in the vicinity, but the new site is not yet known to us.
- By chance, we spotted a red hazardous waste container at a PTT gas station on Highway #118. The location of this gas station is shown on Google Maps: Driving towards Chiang Mai city on Highway #118, you can see the PTT gas station just 500 m (⅓ mi) before the first junction with traffic lights. At the PTT gas station, the container is in front of the toilet facility. If a tenant wishes to dispose of hazardous waste, we ask them to do so there. However, there are also several other gas stations that provide a container for hazardous waste.
- All other types of waste: Please put them in a separate plastic bag and dispose of them in our garbage disposal hut next to Clerodendrum Chalet West.
- Where to put used toilet paper? In the bathroom of the houses, next to the toilet bowl within arm's reach, there is a small rubbish container equipped with a plastic bag. Put your toilet paper there! Don't drop it in the toilet bowl and flush! After a couple of days, please take out the plastic bag, close it tightly, and dispose of it into the garbage disposal hut next to Clerodendrum Chalet West. Equip the rubbish container with a new plastic bag. If you don't have a plastic bag left, you may get it from our stock.
- Compost heaps: On the property, there are currently 2 compost heaps for general organic waste. Halfway up the private driveway, there is a large compost heap on the left, next to a special compost heap for cut bamboo poles. There is another, smaller compost heap near the deep well, between the pathway and the eastern boundary fence.
- Garbage disposal hut next to Clerodendrum Chalet West: This hut is at the main entrance gate (Gate 1), on the side of the Clerodendrum Chalets, not the one on the side of Plumeria Bungalow. You can bring the plastic bags containing residual waste into the hut at any time, but preferably no later than Tuesday morning, as we prepare the waste on Tuesday afternoon for collection by the garbage truck, which comes weekly on early or late Wednesday morning.
Garbage disposal hut next to Clerodendrum Chalet West 
- We place the usually small garbage bags from the garbage disposal hut into one or more XL- or XXL-sized black garbage bags. If you have already collected your garbage in a large black garbage bag and it is too big for the garbage disposal hut, you can leave it in front of the hut (inside the property). Garbage bags must not be left open but must be closed, for example, with a knot or string. On Tuesday afternoon, we prepare the large XL- and XXL-sized black garbage bags for collection. Each bag must be labeled with an official sticker. We then place the bags ourselves on the bamboo garbage collection platform outside the property, next to the public road. The following Wednesday morning, the garbage collector picks up the bags from this platform, provided they are labeled.
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| Containers for dry recyclable waste, as shown in the photos above, are no longer provided |
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| Former hazardous waste disposal in the village of Ban Pa Tio |
