Thailand is new dumping ground for world’s high-tech trash

Thailand is a new dumping ground for scrap electronics from around the world, say police and environmentalists, the latest country to feel the impact of China’ s crack down on imports of high-tech trash.

Police at La em Ch a bang port, south of Bangkok, showed seven shipping containers each packed with about 22 tonnes of discarded electronics, including crushed game consoles, computer board sandbags of scrap materials.

Electronic refuse, ore-waste, is turning up from Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan, police said, some of it imported by companies without the required permits.

“This ... shows that electronic waste from every corner of the world is flowing into Thailand ,” Deputy Police Chief W ira ch a is on gm et ta 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 include hazardous material 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 ton ne of electronic waste ,” Wirachaisaid.

China imposed a ban on overseas trash last year, telling the World Trade Organization( W TO) that it would stop accepting import son 24 types of Since 2017, when China banned import of ewaste, electronic refuse from Hong Kong, Singapore and Japan is flowing into Thailand foreign waste, leading some to fear that the waste could end up in neighbouring countries. The ban has up ended the world’ s waste handling supply chain and caused massive pile-ups of trash from Asia to Europe, as exporters struggled to find new buyers for the garbage.

According to estimates in China’ s state media, more than 70 percent of the world’ s 500 million tonnes of electronic waste entered China in 2016.