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Pichit Town Municipality
Pichit Town Municipality Muang District, Pichit Province
Vision: Livable city, happy people through efficient administration and public services Population: 21,645 (2018) Number of communities: 25 Area: 12.014 square kilometers
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As an urban community, Pichit is still far from the definition of chaos. The city’s growth has been gradual, while new developments have emerged from steady progress. However, the city is equipped with standardized public utility facilities that offer everyday life convenience, for example, Beung Sri Fa, an 800-hectare lake, and a massive public park situated right in the middle of the city. These qualities have a significant impact on people’s improved living standards and happiness and Pichit’s reputation as a dream retirement destination.
Environmentally Sustainable City Management Model
Key of Success
Urban management has been carried out with clear objectives with the tasks executed according to the urban developmental trajectory. Community members’ common interests and issues have been raised and discussed to develop expansive and inclusive urban development, for instance, a connection between health and environmental problems.
Developmental activities have been consistently organized between the municipality and local communities to encourage people’s continual participation in urban development.
Expand the network of allies into a collaborative system while continuing to seek and integrate new bodies of knowledge and innovations to urban development.
Waste is everyone’s matter
People’s previous understanding views waste management as the sole responsibility of the municipality. It took Pichit 15 years to solve the misunderstanding, which eventually led to the city’s sustainable waste management and people’s new mindset about their roles and responsibilities for the sanitation and livability of the community.
Initially, the municipality organized several activities to educate community leaders about sustainable management of the urban environment. The community leaders then passed on the knowledge to community members. What followed
were meetings, and brainstorming between community members, which led to developmental approaches realized to coincide with each community’s issues and demands. Surveys put together necessary information about each locality, following by the design of a community map. The municipality has been continually supporting the organization of various activities on different special days and occasions as a way to promote a collective awareness in environmental development among community members.
In terms of waste management, the municipality adopts a participatory approach at the household level. Community leaders take responsibility in promoting waste sorting among community members, as well as ideas in creating products out of scrap materials, compost using organic wastes, etc.
These days, every community within Pichit Municipality is free from waste accumulation problems with all the wastes systematically collected and disposed. In the meantime, community members have been highly participative in environmental activities such as tree survey and registration or encouraging local farmers to grow fruit trees to sustain the city’s food security. Such participation has strengthened a sense of community and people’s love for their hometown. It also gives birth to many green jobs, which enable community members to generate income from environmental conservation, such as the production of organic liquid fertilizer that brings in extra income into local households.
Learning Center for Environmental Management
Learning Center # 1 Learning and Center of Environmental Management: Waterfall Building, Bueng Si Fai Lake
The solar-powered Waterfall Building is the learning center of Pichit’s ethnic history and the city’s environmental and energy conservation and management. The contents of the exhibition come in the forms of video screening, demonstration, and a living exhibition, including the display of products made of recycled materials and a presentation of renewable energy use in everyday life.
Learning Center # 2 Public Health and Environmental Division
The learning center offers information on types and methods of waste management that have been successfully adopted by Pichit Municipality. The center also showcases products and interior decoration items made of recycled wastes. Currently, the products are in high demand from both domestic and global markets.
Learning Center # 3 Learning and Center of Environmental Management: Baan Tha Luang Municipality School
This model school employs and applies environmental management concepts based on the sufficiency economy philosophy. Through the school’s curriculum, students from kindergarten to high school levels learn about waste sorting, saving habits for the youths, sustainable consumption, all the way to gardening skills and production of learning media from recycled materials, etc.
Learning Center # 4 25 model communities in environmental management
This community-run learning center for environmental management highlights the application of an environmentally friendly way of life-based on sufficiency economy philosophy such as the use of a bicycle in everyday life, household waste sorting, organic vegetable planting, and the transformation of wastes into products with value-added such as everyday items, home decoration items. Activities are varied between communities, ranging from creative use of waste materials as plant containers or Prachauthit Community’s waste recycling and transformation center that creates products from used scrap ribbons and ropes.
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