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Thailand is New Dumping Ground For World's High-Tech Trash, Police Say (trust.org) 60

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
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.
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Thailand is New Dumping Ground For World's High-Tech Trash, Police Say More

Thailand is New Dumping Ground For World's High-Tech Trash, Police Say

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  • 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 yo

  • 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, ...

    • 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: (Score:2)

      by zenbi ( 3530707 )
      You mean like Apple's trade-in [apple.com] 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.

    • 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: (Score:2)

      by c ( 8461 )

      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.

      • Comment removed based on user account deletion

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by c ( 8461 )

          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.

  • 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?

    • Comment removed based on user account deletion
      • 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 questi
        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
          • 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.

          • 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 th

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by jythie ( 914043 )
      And in the ultimate irony it turns out galactic level trash isn't much more advanced than what we already have.
  • 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.

  • 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 w

  • sense of scale (Score:4, Interesting)

    by CSMoran ( 1577071 ) on Wednesday May 30, 2018 @02:17PM (#56700980) Journal

    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?

  • 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.

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