Why you should buy bread krathongs at Loi Krathong in Thailand

14:29 Amy 0 Comments

I don't understand why people equate polluting the river with styrofoam and metal to paying respect to it. 

Thankfully, I'm not alone. Everyone can choose to release a more environmentally friendly krathong:

Every time you spend money, you're casting a vote for the kind of world you want. If customers refuse to buy the styrofoam or metal krathongs; sellers won't make them any more.

The bread and ice cream cone krathongs are just as pretty and almost all of it will dissolve away into nothingness or be eaten by river creatures - which is surely even better from a 'letting go of bad stuff' point of view than it simply floating away but still being in existence. This is an easy way to make a less harmful impact on the environment.

You could also buy ones made with all-natural materials (banana trunks, leaves and flowers) that will rot away over a longer period of time; but be aware that these are still usually full of wires, pins and staples to hold everything in place. I still think bread or ice cream cones are the better choice from an environmental perspective.

Be sure to check your bread krathong for wires and only buy ones without. A lot of the bread krathongs have pretty sparkly dangley things hung on a wire poked into the base. Obviously, wire doesn't dissolve and if a river creature tries to eat it after being attracted to the sparklyness, it may end up severely unhappy or dead.

I read that in some places in Thailand, officials have workers collect the krathongs from the river and turn them into compost. Make sure that the krathongs you send out onto the river can be composted!

Beautiful. Photo from siamsouth.com