In recent times, more than 50 of the village's 100 households have taken up the occupation of night soil collectors, in which their trucks suction the waste out of toilets. Each generates an average annual income of around Bt100,000 - high enough for the villagers to be encouraged to quit the illicit drug trade.

A caravan of 60 night soil trucks leaves the village each morning to service customers in surrounding north-eastern provinces. Daily income for the three or four boys who man each truck is Bt300, while owners can earn up to Bt1,000.

Each truck costs around Bt800,000 and it takes four to five years for an owner to recover the investment. Some owners agree to deals with local administrative bodies through concessions and operate within designated areas, while some work independently.

Udorn Srising said he paid around Bt3,000 in concession fees to a tambon administrative organisation and makes about Bt200,000 a year. Some truck owners operate full-time while others digress to work as farmers or river fishermen, collecting night soil during the non-harvesting seasons.

Udorn acknowledged the villagers used to deal in amphetamines and had trouble with the police until they began the night soil service a few years ago. The drug business was so rampant in Kud Pladuk  the village was on a police blacklist and targeted for drastic suppression.

Nookorn Phanwat said the suction truck owners also offered other services including water transport, water pumping from natural watercourses to rice paddies at the rate of Bt200 per rai, and water treatment on pre-concrete surfaces during road construction works.

The most difficult period for the operators was during the wet season, when roads become muddy or too soft for the trucks and household toilet tanks were constantly full because of the higher pressure of underground water, Nookorn said.

Somsak Lohachart, who started in this line of work 20 years ago, called on the central government and local bodies to systematically build waste-water treatment facilities and public cesspool services for human waste from private trucks. He also suggested organic fertiliser plants be built to make use of waste.

Suchart Soongrueng

The Nation