Every Thursday, come rain or shine, you will see a group of people walking along the Khao Takiab beach picking up discarded bottles, cigarette butts and plastic bags. These are uncelebrated heroes in Hua Hin who call their happy group the Trash Hero and rightly so too! This small community of environmentally conscious people gather voluntarily every Thursday without fail at 3pm to clean up the Khao Takiab Beach. “It was first started by a Swiss gentleman in Koh Lipe in the south of Thailand. He started Trash Hero Thailand about 2 years ago and wanted to do it here in Hua Hin too.” Says Pennapa Kradtarn, the founder of the group who works at the Riad Hua Hin Hotel. Pennapa believes that we should give back as much as we take from nature. She expressed the need for individuals to take initiative and clean up after themselves to keep the beaches clean.
The Trash Hero’s objectives are to clean up the beaches and public areas as well as to reduce waste , especially plastic waste. They also hope to educate local residents as well as tourists to practice good waste management. She encourages others to join voluntary cleaning events to promote a healthy and clean community environment. Recently on the 6th of June, they had a special clean up session on Saturday where they were joined by friends and volunteers from Bangkok. They removed a whopping 125 kgs of trash consisting mainly of cigarette butts, plastic bags, bottles etc.
The Trash Hero is a purely non-profit, voluntary group and requires no membership or monetary contributions. All they ask for is volunteers to show up on Thursday and start cleaning, or help provide garbage bags or refreshments for the volunteers. Currently, the clean-up events happen only on the Khao Takiab beach but they are hoping to expand to other parts of Hua Hin when they have more volunteers. Trash Hero groups are also active in Ao Nang, Koh Tao and Songkla with plans to expand to Chiang Mai and Indonesia as well.
