The Eco City at Muang Niwet in Baan Sa and Muang Mai Subdistricts in Chae Hom District, Lampang Province is another initiative to promote sustainable living through efficient management of resources. SCG’s Siam Cement (Lampang) has been working with the Baan Paen Pong Chai community in Baan Sa, Chae Hom, Lampang, to manage waste that cannot be legally buried nor incinerated.
Thus, SCG initiated the waste management project in Baan Sa in 1997 by raising awareness among schoolchildren, then to locals in the Baan Sa community. In 2001, SCG encouraged all 10 villages in the subdistrict to sort waste by educating and incentivizing the community, successfully decreasing the amount of waste that needs to be processed by 60 percent, and alleviating the problem of odor and flies.
Moreover, SCG introduced the project to recycle and sort waste that allows the community to generate income from recycled waste, demonstrating to locals a tangible benefit of sorting and selling waste through activities such as exchanging hazardous waste for eggs, using organic waste to make compost, and transforming waste to Refuse-derived fuel (RDF) with cooperation from the Baan Sa administration, and Siam Cement (Lampang).
In 2017, the waste management project was launched in Muang Mai — a drought area – with cooperation from the Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning, adopting the Baan Sa model to the Muang Mai area.
SCG also carried out other projects to address the needs of the community as follow:
- Natural resources management, building dams, and conserving forest areas
- Water management for agriculture, building permanent dams and ponds
- Environmental management, waste management, and development of alternative energy
- Economic development, decreasing spending and generating income
