Recycled electronics are turning Thailand into a 'dumping ground for hazardous waste'

[webfact]

Recycled electronics are turning Thailand into a 'dumping ground for hazardous waste'

By South-East Asia correspondent Kathryn Diss

 

PHOTO: Payao Charoonwong says a local e-waste recycling facility has destroyed her village's main water supply.

Credit: (ABC News: Kathryn Diss )

 

Electronic waste from Western countries, including Australia, is flooding the shores of South-East Asian nations like Thailand, sparking fears of air and water pollution.

 

Global waste markets were upended in 2018 when China implemented tough new import restrictions on plastic and e-waste materials from foreign nations, forcing countries to find new markets.

 

Australia is among the countries taking advantage of the lax environmental regulations in Asia, redirecting trash China will no longer take to countries like Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia.

 

Full story: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-07-16/recycled-tech-from-western-nations-destroying-thai-villages/11274578

 

-- ABC NEWS 2019-07-16

[quandow]

The proud hub of global waste.

[DrTuner]

It's just terraforming to make the Chinese and Indians feel at home.

[SoilSpoil]

Those in charge need to stop this. By not acting they are selling out the country and ruining it for future generations.

[Justgrazing]

2 hours ago, webfact said:

 

Electronic waste from Western countries, including Australia, is flooding the shores of South-East Asian nations like Thailand, sparking fears of air and water pollution.

They might want to consider looking closer to home on the air and water pollution front .. 

[Stargeezr]

Yes, aren't there some islands in Indonesia that could be developed to take this stuff and

remelt it down, Just wondering if there is some place in the world that could be used

to get some stuff collected and reused.

Geezer

[attrayant]

3 hours ago, Stargrazer9889 said:

Yes, aren't there some islands in Indonesia that could be developed to take this stuff and remelt it down, Just wondering if there is some place in the world that could be used to get some stuff collected and reused.

 

 

It's a logistical nightmare. The materials are toxic and persistent environmental pollutants like lead, mercury & cadmium. Some electronic devices, like smoke detectors, even contain radioactive material. Radioactive isotopes of cobalt have, in the past, gotten mixed into metal recycling resulting in common everyday metal items emitting radiation. Behold the radioactive cheese grater.

 

It's possible to build a facility to manage this problem, but nobody wants to incur the costs of shipping their trash to it if it happens to be far away, like Indonesia. The logical place to have such a facility is closest to the point at which the recycled material will be returned to the raw materials supply chain. That would probably be China.

 

Disassembly of electronic devices is labor intensive. I took an old printer apart a few months ago.  I've got all the tools and I'm familiar with the devices because I used to service them back in the 90s.  Even so, it took me between 4-6 hours to get everything apart to the point where I had a pile of plastic and a pile of screws and a pile of rubber and a pile of circuit boards.  Maybe I could do two of those per day before my hands went raw.    The material I recovered from that effort will not be enough to pay for my labor.

[transam]

I think the aim was to get the stuff working again...

[Snow Leopard]

This hole could take a little bit of waste.

 

Western countries have the controls and technology in place to deal with this in their own backyards. Exporting or kicking the can down the road to other countries that don't have these controls and simply because of cost is not acceptable. 

 

[Cadbury]

I am sure that after the Chinese embargo on imported electronic waste I am certain I can recall PM Prayut using his Artlcle 44 to bypass environment laws to fast track approval of these "recycling" dumps to preferred Chinese clients with Thai connections. Can anyone else remember?

[djayz]

22 hours ago, DrTuner said:

It's just terraforming to make the Chinese and Indians feel at home.

A lot of 'em here feel perfectly at home in rubbish of one sore or another, too.

[djayz]

22 hours ago, SoilSpoil said:

Those in charge need to stop this. By not acting they are selling out the country and ruining it for future generations.

Those in charge are lining their pockets from turning a blind eye to these, and other, problems. For as long as this is the case, they'll never act on it. Never.