In the past, China was a major recipient of electronic waste. Tonnes of it were shipped across the world, mostly from Western countries, to be dumped there and recycled cheaply.
But in 2018, Beijing banned imports. That forced shippers to look elsewhere and many of them alighted on Thailand and other countries in south-east Asia.
Thailand introduced its own import ban in 2020 but it has not solved the problem. The amount of electronic waste flooding into the country has increased twentyfold in the past decade, from around 3,000 tonnes a year before the Chinese ban to 60,000 now, according to environmental group Earth Thailand.
Much of it comes from the US and the European Union, where consumers update their mobile phones and computers relatively frequently, and where per-capita use of electrical goods like fridges and washing machines is high.
Even though most Western countries have laws in place to prevent the dumping of e-waste in other countries, there are ways round them. Some waste, for example, is deliberately mislabelled as “second-hand electronic goods for re-sale”, only to be smashed up, recycled and smelted once it reaches its destination.
That smelting is a dirty business, releasing mercury, lead and toxic fumes into the environment. But it is also lucrative, producing millions of dollars worth of copper, gold and other valuable metals and minerals.