Thailand is a new dumping ground for scrap electronics from around the world, police and environmentalists said, the latest nation to feel the impact of China’s crackdown on imports of high-tech trash.
Police at Laem Chabang port, south of Bangkok, on Tuesday showed seven shipping containers each packed with about 22 tonnes of discarded electronics, including crushed game consoles, computer circuit boards and bags of scrap material.
Electronic refuse, or e-waste, is turning up from Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, police said, some of it imported by companies without the required permits.
Photo: Reuters
“This ... shows that electronic waste from every corner of the world is flowing into Thailand,” Deputy Police Chief Wirachai Songmetta said as he showed the containers to the media.
While “e-waste” — defined as any device with an electric cord or battery — can be “mined” for valuable metals such as gold, silver and copper, it can also include hazardous materials such as lead, mercury and cadmium.
Police said they filed charges against three recycling and waste processing companies in Thailand.
Anyone found guilty could be jailed for up to 10 years.
“The companies that we have filed charges against don’t have a quota to import even a single tonne of electronic waste,” Wirachai said.
China imposed a ban on overseas trash last year, telling the WTO that it would stop accepting imports of 24 types of foreign waste, leading some to fear that the waste could end up in neighboring nations.
The ban has upended the world’s waste handling supply chain and caused massive pileups of trash from Asia to Europe, as exporters struggled to find new buyers for the garbage.
Chinese state media last year estimated that more than 70 percent of the world’s 500 million tonnes of electronic waste entered China in 2016.
Environmentalists say waste once destined for China is being rerouted to Southeast Asian nations and new laws are needed or existing laws better enforced to prevent illegal imports.
“Especially after China’s ban, Thailand could become one of the biggest dumping grounds for e-waste,” Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand director Penchom Saetang said.
Thailand in 1997 ratified the Basel Convention, which aims to control movements of hazardous waste, but the convention does not completely prohibit these exports from more developed to less developed nations.
“The Basel Convention cannot prevent what is happening in Thailand because it has its limitations,” Penchon said while calling for an amendment that would ban the shipments of e-waste.
Thai Prime Minister Prayuth Chan-ocha vowed this week to step up nationwide inspections as part of a plan to combat illegal electronic waste, but environmentalists say they have not seen the details of how it will work.
“It isn’t clear how he will do this,” Penchom said.
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