Thailand is New Dumping Ground For World's High-Tech Trash, Police Say (trust.org)

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 crackdown on imports of high-tech trash. From a report: Police at Laem Chabang port, south of Bangkok, showed on Tuesday seven shipping containers each packed with about 22 tonnes of discarded electronics, including crushed game consoles, computer boards and bags of scrap materials. 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. "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 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.

Comments

Mending is better than ending.

[b0s0z0ku]

Buck the trend! Remember Brave New World? "Ending is better than mending" was not supposed to be the prime directive in an instruction manual...

Buy phones with either removable or easily replaceable batteries and upgradable storage. Buy "pro quality" laptops that are modular and can be upgraded, not consumer-quality "Surface" or "Macbook" junk that's glued together. Or use a desktop. This kind of stuff can last 5-10 years -- throwing it away after a year or two is stupid and environmentally nasty.

Do your part in ending planned obsolescence.

Re:Mending is better than ending.

[The Grim Reefer]

including crushed game consoles

There, in bold, do you need more clues to realize all this recycling they fill their big mouths is all about?

Their recycling is all about making the second hand and repair markets something irrelevant so that people have little option but to buy their new products.

Is it that, or has someone already removed the easiest/most valuable components from those and now shipped what's left to Thailand? From what I've seen, no recycler is going to take the time to carefully removed the screws and clips form a plastic case when it's much faster to simply smash/cut the case open to grab the valuable bits.

Re:Mending is better than ending.

[sexconker]

Recycling is supposed to be the LAST option before dumping/burning shit.

Reduce
Reuse
Recycle

In that order.

But what we have now is a bunch of people buying new, new, new all the time, and the "recycling" efforts are nothing more than shipping toxic trash around the globe before dumping it on some poor people.

Re:Mending is better than ending.

[Rick Schumann]

While it's consumers buying new things instead of repairing existing things, the blame for them doing that falls squarely on the shoulders of the manufacturers and more to the point their marketing departments. First they don't bother making things repairable in any reasonable manner anymore because they can make things smaller and cheaper if they do, so higher profit margin. Then their marketing people indoctrinate everyone that you have to have the NEWEST and SHINIEST things, and that OLD things are OLD and make you look POOR, and who wants to look OLD and POOR? Philosophies need to change or we're going to be living in the world of WALL-E, where the Earth is uninhabitable because it's all been turned into a landfill full of toxic junk.

Responsiblity

[grumpy-cowboy]

All companies producing electronics (phones, laptops, washing machine, IoT, ....) are responsible for this mess. Especially companies producing phones and other stupid "connected" IoT. They "force" consumers to change their phone/connected gadget by making it obsolete too quickly and/or preventing us to use 3rd party OS/software on it to extends device's life.

Thailand should send back every device to the company who built it. Apple will receives thousand of containers of iPhone, MacBook, iGarbage, ...

Re:Responsiblity

[b0s0z0ku]

Technically, MacBooks do allow 3rd-party OS's and apps. The problem is that the new MacBooks have an abysmal design in other ways (glued-on everything).

Re:Responsiblity

[zenbi]

You mean like Apple's trade-in and recycling program? If the device can be refurbished, you get a small credit, otherwise it's still a free service.

Apple GiveBack lets you recycle any Apple device and devices from Apple owned brands at any Apple Store and online. We'll make sure it's recycled responsibly or given a chance to be used again. Some devices may also be eligible for credit. You can bring your batteries and old Apple-products to any Apple Store, and we'll recycle them responsibly, free of charge. We accept any small product or battery without purchase of a new product or battery.

Re:Responsiblity

[Registered Coward v2]

Thailand should send back every device to the company who built it. Apple will receives thousand of containers of iPhone, MacBook, iGarbage, ...

Apple already takes back devices, not sure what they do to recycle but take back laws would induce more design with recycling in mind since they would ultimately wind up with the scrap machines. EU car manufacturers made changes to basic materials and construction to make it easier to recycle vehicles when they get scrapped. Packaging take back laws change how items are packaged. However, as long as there is no cost to producing waste companies will pay limited attention to recycling.

Re:Responsiblity

[c]

Thailand should send back every device to the company who built it.

Someone in Thailand is importing that stuff. Their address is likely on the crate. Put them in prison, give them the job of properly recycling everything, and don't release them until the job is done.

Re: Responsiblity

[TimMD909]

So jail anyone who takes the time to clean up another's mess? Trying to solve everything by prison terms seems a bad idea. Hasn't worked in America...

Re: Responsiblity

[c]

So jail anyone who takes the time to clean up another's mess?

If Thailand doesn't want its people importing another's mess and those people do it anyways (i.e. without permits, as the summary says), then what's so unreasonable about a jail sentence?

America's problem is that they keep jailing the wrong people for the wrong things.

It's all relative when some live on dirt floors

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

I wish some galactic civilization would use Earth as a dumping grounds for its high-tech trash. Even if a little poisonous, can you imagine the boon to humanity?

Re:It's all relative when some live on dirt floors

[Gilgaron]

Presumably an interstellar race would be capable of manufacturing techniques out of our reach even if we knew the materials. In the bronze age, a smith would be able to recognize and use meteoric steel, so, say, an M1 Garand wouldn't be made of materials foreign to him, but he could not duplicate it even if he could potentially discern how to use and repair it. There are a multitude of reasons that dumped alien tech might not actually be useful at all: the bronze age smith would think an iPhone was questionably useful, and doubly so once the battery ran out.

Re:It's all relative when some live on dirt floors

[jythie]

And in the ultimate irony it turns out galactic level trash isn't much more advanced than what we already have.

Re:It's all relative when some live on dirt floors

[Gilgaron]

And despite that we can imagine plenty of things we can't actually manage to build yet. It isn't likely that it is possible to jet around Star Trek style for anyone to leave their detritus here anyhow, but if it could be done it'd certainly involve techniques we yet lack. You're skewering arguments that aren't being made.

Re:It's all relative when some live on dirt floors

[i286NiNJA]

See this is the thing. We don't know IF there are any interstellar species in the universe.
We know that if they do exist and they made it here they can probably do certain things. But who knows maybe there are tons of them not much more advanced than us but their planetary resources are greater, maybe their proximity to other useful bodies in space is better.
It could be that we're unlucky but even if we're in the space-sticks our visitors would probably have the means to get back to more dense parts of the galaxy.

Re:Moscow Donald and Racist Rosanne's Tweets

[sexconker]

Donald Trump has been President for 495 days.

And clowns like you have been screaming about this shit since before the election.

Re:solar energy~earth magnets=free power for all?

[sexconker]

why not? no obsoleted greed fear ego based corepirate megasloth backing? cease fire stand down,, that's the spirit.. never any subscription or cover charges.. hum along...

Stop, thief! No welcome wagon, hello stranger, with that new coffee flavor for you! Offer expires while you wait, operators are standing by!

What is better?

[Labarna]

So what is better, recycling as e-waste or just throwing into the landfill? There are a variety of things for which I am no longer certain. For example, what to do with old smoke detectors.

Is this where E-cycle events dump their garbage?

[GregMmm]

So I'm sure you've seen either an e-cycle event at your job, state, county, etc. I've dropped off stuff before and it always "free". So is this what happens in the end? Does it just change hands a number of times till someone or company just pushes it elsewhere? Have I been fooling myself all this time thinking that when something is e-cycled it really is dealt with?

Don't some electronic items have recycle costs built in? Should they? Say if it costs $10 to recycle an old laptop, should this be paid with the purchase?

Not trying to be naive. Just thought someone thought this out to the end. I guess greed has no limit.

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sense of scale

[CSMoran]

seven shipping containers each packed with about 22 tonnes

A dump fire in Zgierz (Poland) has just conveniently consumed 50 thousand tonnes of plastic waste from Germany, Italy and Switzerland. There's been two dozen of similar (but smaller) fires in the last two months there. And these guys are worried about 150 tonnes?

Re:sense of scale

[angel'o'sphere]

Any links for that?
I googled but did not find anything.

As plastic is mostly recycled in Germany, the number(s) don't sound plausible.

Re:sense of scale

[CSMoran]

Any links for that? I googled but did not find anything.

As plastic is mostly recycled in Germany, the number(s) don't sound plausible.

Only in Polish: https://www.money.pl/gospodark... I think the source is quite reputable.

Re:Import it to Hawaii

[Rick Schumann]

Ironically, theoretically, you could drop your e-waste (and nuclear waste for that matter) into an undersea subduction zone, and over the next 10000 years it'd be 'recycled' into the interior of the Earth. But just try suggesting that and the environmentalists will literally form a lynch mob.

Re: Moscow Donald and Racist Rosanne's Tweets

[AutodidactLabrat]

4 guilty pleas and no evidence
What are you smoking and through which orifice?

Re: Import it to Hawaii

[Rick Schumann]

Fuck off

Where's WALL-E when you need him?

[jtgd]

There's a task for your new AI vision-enabled robots. Take apart all this junk -- down to the chips inside the DIPs -- so it can be recycled.