Sustainable Tourism Management Using Waste Minimization Approach: A Case Study of an Elephant Park in Chiang Mai
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Abstract
Elephant Park is one of the famous tourist destinations in many districts of Chiang Mai. The growth of tourism in elephant parks has a positive effect on national and local economies. However, tourist activities create solid waste, food waste, and elephant dung. Without proper waste management, environmental issues may arise. Therefore, this research aims to study the current solid waste situation in the elephant park, develop a solid waste management strategy using a waste minimization approach, and implement pilot activities. One of the elephant parks in Chiang Mai was used as a case study. Several methodological approaches have been used in this research, including surveying the elephant park, interviewing stakeholders, collecting solid waste, identifying waste characteristics and streams, improving compost quality from elephant dung, and developing waste separation points. Descriptive statistics and content analysis were used to analyze the data. Finally, all data will be used to construct a sustainable solid waste management strategy for the elephant park. The results showed that the elephant park produces an average waste of 10.84 kg per day from tourist activity. These wastes could be classified into four types, namely organic waste (27.16%), recyclable waste (15.36%), general waste (55.77%), and hazardous waste (1.71%), respectively. A person at the elephant park produces an average of waste at 0.03 kg/day. Waste minimization activities for the two major categories were proposed. It includes waste separation points for recyclables and improvement of compost quality from elephant dung. In addition, all people in the elephant park need to sort their waste correctly before disposal to make it easier to manage and help reduce the amount of waste that goes to landfill. In the future, the researcher recommends conducting follow-up assessments after implementing the management strategy.
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