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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.
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.
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.
I'm a consultant - I convert gibberish into cash-flow.
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.
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.
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?
Every end has half a stick.