ORANGE is the color the Prime Minister of Thailand prefers these days, so he will probably be delighted to see the litter bins all lined up at Pak Lok Orbortor.

There are 850 of the ''wheelie bins'' and they will be rolled out this week in the war against trash and rubbish on Phuket.

Another 800 are on the way at a total cost of about two million baht.

Athipong Kongnam, the Orbortor president, plans to keep the eastern sector of Phuket as clean as he possibly can by distributing the bins to villages in the district.

''I want our district to be the cleanest on the island, with the best-looking villages,'' he said.

One garbage truck does the rounds of the district each week. Residents pay 20 baht a month per family for the collection.

It's clearly just coincidence, but in Hong Kong on Friday Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva told the Wall Street Journal: "If my knowledge is correct, if you mix red and yellow you get orange.

''Orange is the color of innovation."

The bins are for disposable trash and their contents will end up at the Saphan Hin incinerator, or on the overflowing mound of trash with which the burning process unable to cope.

Residents have so far been left to do their own recycling.


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