If you have followed any news on flood in the past few weeks, we’d have heard about EM Balls or seen photos of people gathering around making funny-looking things that look like huge clay marbles. These, made up of sand, saw dust, molass, and some EM liquid, supposedly with growing microbes.
The name EM is commercial name of this stuff called Effective Microorganism. This good, wholesome microbes in this ball, when thrown in bad water, are supposed to go out and eat bad microbes in the stinking water, fested with garbage, rotting things, man and animals wastes, etc. That sounds good, huh.
We have Superman conquering bad guys, and we have EM Balls killing bad, smelly stuff in the water- turning the dark, murky water into clear, clean water you don’t mind wading in- too much. The concept was generally accepted and supported by one of the credible microbiology department of a graduate school in Thailand.
It started from a bit folk remedy into a national project, when do-gooding folks get together at shopping centers trying to make, by hand, 100,000 balls to conquer the bad water around Bangkok. We have to give these gentle people credit for the community spirit. From the news, and photos, I can imagine the mood is very good and positive. After all, everyone is so sick and tired of the bad news, the anticipation of the flood we have watched on TV for weeks, and we can do absolutely nothing to prevent it from happening. We could prepare our homes, but we have no idea if and when we’d be hit, and how badly, if at all.
One small glitch on this community activity. One retired sanitary engineering professor from another credible university just came out and claim that the concept is not sound. The concept, originated in Japan, was to increase microbe in over-fertilized land, using the EM liquid. That works well. To extrapolate the affect from the fermented solution into balls to treat waste water has no scientific basis, according to him. As far as he’s concerned, you may as well use lime which is cheaper and proved to be effective. Well, lime is so ordinary, not organic, not wholesome looking. Unlike throwing the hand-made EM balls, pouring lime into the water is so unemotional, not something you want to do with your family.
And I thought this professor is so unkind that he has to come out and kill one of the few fun and hopeful activities we have at this moment. Right afterwards, I ran into an news article in Naewna in April 2009 reporting that according to a field trials in putting PM Balls into various klongs in Bangkok, the balls not only didn’t improve the water but lower the oxygen content in the water, causing it to rot and smell even worse.
To make the whole thing more ironic, the website of www.environment.in.th which I found the news posted on belongs to the Department of Environmental Promotion, Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment.
Well, well, well… This government agency, with their main mission to promote the environment, knows full well that this stuff does not work, and yet has let the trend going viral without saying one word. Turning crisis into opportunity, as they say, just for this year I propose instead of celebrating Loy Krathong, we can switch to throwing EM Balls festival. We have to use the 100,000 balls being hand made by thousands somehow, you know.
We can add a few sub activities into this: throwing ball contest- the farthest, the best looking swings; ball making contest- the prettiest maker, the biggest ball, the roundest ball, the smallest ball; for example.
I even modified the song for you.
วันเพ็ญเดือนสิบสอง น้ำนองเต็มตลิ่ง
เราทั้งหลายชายหญิง สนุกกันจริง วันโยนอีเอม
โยน โยนอีเอม โยน โยนอีเอม
โยนอีเอม กันแล้ว ขอเชิญน้องแก้ว มาโยนอีเอม
โยน โยนอีเอม โยน โยนอีเอม
If we can’t wind them, might as well join them. Have fun, and this is Thailand for you.
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