E-Waste Is Poisoning Malaysia And Thailand - What Can Be Done? | Insight | Full Episode
Tech has a dirty secret - e-waste. Discarded electronics are full of toxic chemicals and heavy metals, which can harm human health and poison the land and waters, if not properly disposed of.
Asia is the biggest generator of e-waste. And due to illegal imports, Southeast Asia is turning into an e-waste dumping ground. Thailand and Malaysia have found themselves on the receiving end of waste from Western nations.
As the safe disposal of e-waste requires specialised processes and equipment, there is simply more e-waste than many countries can handle. Some experts have called this an e-waste timebomb, as regulations and education lag far behind the problem.
But with growing consumerism, exemplified by the rush to purchase the latest mobile phone models, the e-waste conundrum may just keep piling up.
00:00 Introduction
01:12 Raiding an illegal e-waste dumping site in Chonburi, Bangkok
06:04 Toxic materials in e-waste
12:15 How does Illegal e-waste end up in Asia?
21:09 E-waste recycling process
25:56 Informal e-waste recycling sector
31:52 Impact of e-waste that ends up in landfills and incinerators
38:20 Is circular economy the key to reducing e-waste?
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I have to disagree with the summary of this excellent report. The root cause of the inability to recycle effectively and efficiently in Thailand and Malaysia is the rampant corruption by the officials who are responsible for managing the recycling initiatives. This report simply skims over that with less than 1 minute of reference to corruption. Need to be brave and report it.
That is true. Officials are also responsible for enforcing rules.
Oh yes. One such suspected facility started in a rice planting basin here near my place about half a year ago. Now expanding to 2-3 units. Right side those paddy field land. Every other day they will burn things in an open bit resulting in very thick black smog. Reported a few times but nothing has been done.
@@user-rh1wx2og4joh no, no more Thai jasmine rice for me then
Looking forward to the real rootcause episode
Corruption is deeper than just blaming cops, a nation needs to develop in order to allow the follow of regulation to be more effective and efficient. Plus it is not easy for just enforce the law on these entities they also have rights and as the report stated, the owner of the factory changes and hard to pinpoint the person/persons guilty but for majority of people they never conducted an investigation. They just think the cops can lock up anyone they want and end of story. This is far from the truth, Thailand and any country has this issue and we need to find a solution via innovation and tech, no level of blaming cops will help. China banned imports of waste because they reach the proper development level, they also have issues with it still. We need more thinking minds to create tech not more regulators and complainers
Why can't we send faulty tech back along the supply chain? Back to the company, back to the manufacturer. Why don't companies have dedicated recycling departments? Think with Lego. If it can be assembled, it can be disassembled. Why must we send trash to low-income countries to deal with? Everyone knows recycling is not profitable, so that shouldn't even be the main point to consider and be influenced by.
Indeed, there are plenty of solutions but the multinationals want to earn even more, therein lies the problem, NOT wanting to.
Most companies claim high production costs to justify not selling spare parts at fair prices. Yet, they produce them for warranty repairs and provide them to select repairs who jack up prices, creating pay-wall for consumers that makes buying new cheaper. Feels like it wasn't like that when phones had keypads.
there are lots of bad business practices. the sad part is some government officials who supposedly keep them on check are on their paycheck
Especially if all the stock raw resource is from slave of korea, china etc. gg
Nowadays them big corps really just care about money
Seriously, Apple or any smart phone company need start making phone every 3-5 years instead of 1 year. Make phones durable & convinient
Why u put apple first when samsung are the one make so many phone in one year
Lol
Don’t fool yourselves, ALL “smartphone” companies do this. It’s how they make billions off of morons. Let’s not forget how they “OS block” the older devices so you’re forced to buy the new crap because we all know twitterx can’t run on older devices, all that text and photos need more power, MORE POWER I SAY.
Duh... companies need to meet yearly revenue quotas. If they made products that last a lifetime, they make no money. They will assign products a service life span. That's why products last less than five years.
Televisions last for decades. Once they discovered this, instead of making crap, they lowered the prices to encourage people to buy new ones. Everyone wins.
I'm still using my 5-year old LG phone. And yeah LG has stopped making phones.
The manufacturers made so much money from us. Yet they don't do recycle or take back old devices.
What about the number of EVs increasing rapidly? A lot of more Ewaste will be exported to other developing countries?
This is the fault of the relevant governments in not passing legislations severely restricting the import of e-waste and/or prosecutions of illegal importers of e-waste.
Like the fat guy in the middle of video say, Malaysia is doing much better than most countries. We just need to improve regulatory initiative. Malaysia already has law rejecting foreign garbage and are enforcing the law. No point just blame govt. People still need to bring e-waste to recycling bin
Regarding reuse of electronics: For me it depends upon how personal the device is. A phone should be new, but other devices like a vacuum cleaner in good condition is as good as new to me.
why must a phone be new? any problem with buying used?
@@namele55777 Anyone can decide what is best for himself. Pro buying used phone: -price -environment contra: -degraded battery -software updates -device ID may carry over some way -people use phones in bathrooms -previous owner may have watched porn on that device (+remember a phone is a handheld device) (in america: 44% of men and 11% of women reported having watching porn in the past month) Buying a used printer or vacuum cleaner feels safer in these ways. Otherwise it may just be my imagination. I hope I am not convincing anyone, because every used phone bought, is one longer in use.
They dont care about the planet only material things and having loads of kids.And the uk government thinks if we go clean and green things will be ok.😂😂😂
Singapore is one of the top e waste contributor. So what is Singapore doing about its e-waste ?
Thailand is already being poisoned by poor air quality from all the burning. If they cared about human health, focus on that instead.
The king not giving proper instructions from the top.
You should go to check the hot spot from the satellite where the smoke came from.
@@sokapokvic2514 Totally understand that Laos is an sbolute BURNING GROUND, but that doesn't take away the fact that 65,000 factories are operating illegally in Thailand, giving kickbacks to the government. These industries are operating literally in residential neighborhoods with plants belching out black smoke, such as near my house.
@@arsenioseslpodcast3143 The illegal factories? It's almost impossible and you should report to the authorities.
Like what democrats did to ohio
It’s funny e-waste used to be a problem. We just sent off to Africa and now India and then Southeast Asia. It’s like we’re just picking spots to throw all about you. Pretty soon we’re gonna find out that we’re gonna run out of spaces to dump our crap we’re gonna be living in, radioactive, chemical and getting cancer at a young age all for the dollar. Rich people don’t think about generations I come off of them. They just want now, but they don’t know that life is eternity you’ll either be burning in the fire or…..?
Glyphosate-based herbicide, deforestation, plastic polution, E-waste, EV waste. Meantime, useless talk about CO2 which basically is a life support gas, seems that the future doesn't look bright for humanity.
😮 wow …this is an eye opener!!!😮😢🤦🏻♀️ we are all guilty of polluting our precious ❤Earth!!!😢😢🥺
Where the electronic is sold should be where it is recycled. Selling electronic waste is as sick as selling digested food waste. Waste dumping to neighbor-hood or neighbor-country is the same irresponsibility; throwing toxic material without processing. Selling e-waste to countries without toxic waste disposal process, regulation, and law from a country with toxic waste disposal process, regulation, and law is simplify destroying humanity.
it is called the strongest survive the basis of humanity which is a more developed and lofty idea not attached to reality in a lot of ways.
The the US and Europe, there are Right to Repair Regulations from 2023 that mandate that electrical and electronic products must repairable. For example, it is illegal to sell mobile phone where the batteries cannot be replaced. Indeed, this law came into effect in 2021 in the UK, although there are some exceptions still. Unfortunately, companies like Apple and Microsoft deliberately update their software and hardware requirements to make the older equipment inoperable with the newer software. Windows 11 is the perfect example of Microsoft deliberately making sure that older PCs need to be replaced simply by mandating that the PCs must have the TCM modules (which is not necessary for PCs to work).
All the more reason not to buy Microsoft software, there are plenty of other operating systems that work well and even better.
@@patrickpafarnis5798Linux is the best. Windows 11 suck even their built in app doesn’t work properly and why are there two control panels in 1 os?
My mother has a juicer that lasted 25 years. When we tried to look for the brand again, it has gone bankrupted.
See. This is why people make things that don't last
All the laws in the world will not fix the waste problem. Ut requires people that are no materialists so can not be corrupted by money to take charge of the waste process. This problem is only this big because the the governments and companies are working in reactive response mode instead of proactive mode. This is not hard to fix as these governments have the money to employ the 2 or 3 people it will take to fix this. But the governments have to be willing to terminate employment any corrupt officials
All this talk about the circular economy is wishful thinking. They simply exploit currency exchange rates for cheap labour, outsourcing their problems, affecting the health of the unseen, and then buying back a small portion of what has been managed to be recycled.
What is the definition of e-waste? Here in my country, complete electronic items are just put in a grinder, so the tracker would be ground up as well...How to track these :(
Yes worrying situation
I'm a small scale recycler that includes e-waste and for me the biggest issue is the plastic - none of which is recyclable where I am. Nobody wants it and it all goes to the landfill or incinerator. We know we are washing the world in plastic, and we know the detrimental effects, but we continue to do it anyways. We simply cannot recycle our way out of it without large changes.
I have a few old phones and computers kept at home. I always make sure that the batteries arent leaking or bulging. I havent gotten rid of them as there is no proper ewaste disposal where I live.
End fast fashion, fast tech and fast travel.
So e waste and e vehicle battery is a big problem, from rare earth mining to battery disposal. We need to emulate australia, new zealand and japan' s ewaste bylaw and management.
Which involves sending it to thailand
What about the world governments refuse to let products be released unless the companies can prove that their product can easily be recycled 100%?
Like they ever do that.
Or that the quality is such that it can be repaired again, with China being the culprit, namely many of their products are throwaway products. Although Apple is also a good example of throwaway products.
@@patrickpafarnis5798 that’s a great option. The western companies and consumers are just as equally to blame for poor quality as people demand low cost items so they can own more crap cheaply thus items are made for bottom dollar. Tesla is now joining Apple as they move to glued in structural batteries instead of replaceable screwed in packs in the name of cost cutting.
@@patrickpafarnis5798 get out of ur bubble, without CN, pay three times than u now, Idio&*
These poor countries are in the industrial age. Pollution will be a way of life for many decades to come. Change will be slow because of greed and profits.
By the way, my 12-year-old laptop running on Linux is still working. I only support phone manufacturers that guarantee 7 years of OS/system updates, like the Pixel 8 Pro. Consumers should do their part by not discarding perfectly good electronic devices. Instead, they should attempt to repair or revive them for a second chance. This approach could significantly reduce electronic waste.
All the more reason not to buy Microsoft software, there are plenty of other operating systems that work well and even better.
Manufacturers of electronic products need to emphasize more on modular designs and right to repair and replace. This hurts their bottom line, so many companies, especially Apple intentionally make it difficult to repair in hopes that consumers buy more. So long as consumers keep paying for this "ransom", this is what we are going to keep getting.
Clean the top , to clean the bottom
How true is this!!!
It would be a good thing if the companies manufacturing these toxic gadgets were held responsible for recycling their products. In Asian countries, where corruption is rampant, and where simple recycling of regular waste like paper, bottles, cans, etc are non-existent, pollution is a non-topic.
Industrial nations dumping their waste in someone elses backyard. What is more outrageous: The countries doing tobdumping, or the countries that are allowing the dumping?
Western world love the NOT IN MY OWN BACKYARD mindset. It's absolutely atrocious
How to recycle ewaste and use it for better purposes
Where's LYNAS now?
In America, it costs money to recycle e waste.
also in Indonesia. Solution pls...
3Rs. Reduce first. Reuse second. Recycle last. Because of entropy, recycling will always be (energy) more expensive than producing. And no one wants to pay for recycling if it's more expensive than the profit you can make back from the raw materials.
It's an insult to the environment we solely depend on....
Both malaysia and thailand dont know how to repair units. But in the philippnes, we can resurrect any equipments, electronics,.machines. filipino has the skill to repair that is proven long long time ago. Look at our jerpneys engines from70s anf 8ps , stll running even the old nokia 3300s. Filipinos are techies loves cp as a part of our life. No.1 social media user in tbe world. But We kept those stuff for the future used than throw in the garbage.
Here, drop your dangerous flammable lithium batteries into our cardboard box...
If we used certain tech we already have, we could recycle everything and clean all water, air and soil. But we'd have to get better officials in our government who will actually use the tech instead of blocking it all the time. We need officials that will actually progress society and humanity. Not hold it back and make horrible decisions like now.
China is the greatest contributor...bought an item..it just lasted a week. Japanese ones you can repair even vintage ones..better quality products means less trash.
Millions of EV cars in the EV graveyards in China. They did not even turn a wheel in "anger", but discarded because of the stupid CCP policy of providing huge subsidies to the manufacturers based on manufacturing volume, not end customer sales registration. So the manufacturers simply manufacture the cars, claim their subsidies, take out the high value items like batteries, motors, ECUs, etc and dump all the white cars in the fields. Obscene.
@@TL-xw6fh thats crazy..i never think it that way. I always thought that is due to low consumer demand.
@@cetocoquinto4704 It's 100% kosher. It is all over YT. There are lots of scammers in China, and they even scammed the government! Just look at the thousands and thousands of pure white cars in paddy fields, etc. There are weeds growing all over them.
another myth that you assume.@@TL-xw6fh
america and euro dump ewaste around the wolrd,not china,china can handle ewaste itself,and reject foreign country dump ewaste to china,each country had to deal with its own problem
Big Tech has to stop planned obsolescense! Nowadays it's possibly to engineer circuits to deteriorate after xyz period of usage. Also they embedd algorithms in their OS or Firmware which causes bugs or makes the device slower or acting weird after some time, especially when they brought up a new model
Iphone had been caught doing that 😂
Interesting subject. How did the esteemed CNA suddenly got wind of this. Or is this yet another one of those handsomely paid-for foreign -produced documentaries?
Private businesses r all profit driven & to use the cheapest items , cut corners reduce costs if it becomes state owned that's worse it turns into a lazy corrupt entity. It is a big problem with very little solutions currently. Hopefully if potential for profit can be shown PPL will take interest in recycling the waste.
EV next?...
Already in China. Watch China observer topic on abandoned EVs in china
Can't stop progress... and look how green our countries are, zero waste zero emission .... yet on the same planet of ... this
The problem with E-Waste in Malaysia can be easily fixed if a Western controlled E-Waste recycler would set up a clean facility. The labour in this area is cheep enough to be able to make profit from a clean plant here. This is what I would love to set up if I could only get funding. I am 3 and 1/2 years into building a small recycling business here in Brisbane Australia and the biggest problem is the amount of people that rip off the grant system and have now caused a much tougher controlled system that makes it almost impossiable to get grant money for small startups. I would love to talk to anyone that wants to set up a clean profitable E-Waste recycling plants in these countries.
Hmm maybe i dont know dump it in plastic bins instead of on the ground and in waterways?
Thanks to America and Europe!
Thai government still need a lot lot of improvement 🥹
This has and never will be a secret. Nothing that happens bad in the world today is a secret. We all know it’s coming, but we still continue to act accordingly it’s like knowing your destiny but you can’t change it or can we?
Make products to last and repairable.
Used solar panels are next.
The biggest problem is that people are not calling out recycling for th scam that it largely is.
The AREA or region is always full of constant Lightning of much static in the air due to them making and manufacturing the world's computer boards, chips, and so on. There are 1000s of lightning strikes A DAY, FOR MONTHS ON IF NOT just a break of a month . It is the WORLD'S most electrified air static around.
This is so sad! Best advice is to keep using your phone untill it brakes and dont upgrade the phone if the phone still works... And Microsoft should keep Windows 10 supported after 2025 because this will get worse if Microsoft ends support.
Malaysia boleh
Sent to Myanmar
Most of the waste belongs to big American , Europe or Japanese company. Malaysia or Thailand should force the waste send back to original company country (American, Europe, Japanese).
The operator is paying government officials to keep operating
Government problem 100%
"Malaysia is no longer a 3rd world country" said disgraced UMNO ex-PM Najib Razak. Well...here we are...
With madanon we even go to 4th the number chinese so afraid about it
@@hanisrosli5484 Malay, Indian, Orang Asli, Dayak, Bidayu, Kadazan Dusun and Murut, Runggus, Bajau, Iban etc and the rest are not afraid?? How brave! 😂 Great logic! 👏 Bravo 👏 Well done habibi! 👏👏👏
Always non malay complain n they the reason this happen😅
سلام عيد مبارك
السلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته!!
Need my ps5 pro
I work all night, I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay Ain't it sad? And still there never seems to be a single penny left for me That's too bad In my dreams I have a plan If I got me a wealthy man I wouldn't have to work at all, I'd fool around and have a ball Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man's world Aha All the things I could do If I had a little money It's a rich man's world It's a rich man's world A man like that is hard to find but I can't get him off my mind Ain't it sad? And if he happens to be free I bet he wouldn't fancy me That's too bad So I must leave, I'll have to go To Las Vegas or Monaco And win a fortune in a game, my life will never be the same Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man's world Aha All the things I could do If I had a little money It's a rich man's world Money, money, money Must be funny In the rich man's world Money, money, money Always sunny In the rich man's world Aha All the things I could do If I had a little money It's a rich man's world It's a rich man's world
😢😢
I don't know about it but why doesn't in my country they pay quite a good money for the kilogram of chips computer parts and other boards and computer parts they don't care whatever parts they just measure the kilograms then why it is a pollution I believe it's not
This planet is DOOMED LMAO
all these while i have high regards for reports made by CNA. so far I have seen many CNA videos. This is the worst , whoever produce this should be demoted to protect the image of CNA. Tons of inaccuracies and misleading information. And its very very biased towards the situation in Malaysia. I am sure those so called lecturers had their interviews edited and badly manipulated to suit the story telling....
every input must have output, so if you dont dump here then where? to the moon?
No no, don’t listen to this video, keep buying a new phone every year because it’s 5% more “powerful” and 20% more shiny. Keep using disposable e-devices there’s no problem here. Everything’s normal, move along.
Make something new recycle plastic products
why is it call e waste ?
Electronic waste
Recyclers for a reason be naked for a week I slept on the concrete.❤
Why not show how to recycle e-waste. This is e-waste of time.
Sickening. Had to stop watching out of disgust
For a change we would like to learn from CNA about how e-waste is poisoning Singapore. And how elections are managed with guided speech and tailored media in ablepore, where voters who account for less than 50% of residents are oppressed by soaring cost of living. Such reports would hopefully be honest if not as scare-mongering as reporting about other countries in the neighbourhood
saying people who use mobile 😂
มาจากอภิปายก้าวไกล
Allso poeple need to stop throwing away perfectly fine electronics because "It's old." Id much rather let that old xp machine or that wii be in someone's hands rather than be in a landfill.
Short ansaw "nothing" because we love trash
Dont forget to mention that, western countries send their e waste and waste to asian countries too.
Waiting for the comment to blame US...
Of course there will be. Did you check the reason people made Basel Convention? Check that by yourselves, pandai
We dont blame US 😂 we blame big techs company for planned obsolescence aka Apple for adding bloatware to systematically fail older devices.
What can be done?? send it to Africa instead
Is not my problem
E waste is created by the Homosapians and the solution is to reduce the population growth, after which the waste would reduce with time.
second
🤣
From Generation to generation they are doing same thing
third
fourth
Wheres Malaysia insight?! You only give from the Thais but you mentioned Thai and Malaysia problems?! This is a blatant lie to the audience.
This chanel always conclude malay in all other neighbour prob.. Just to make non mly compain they country
@@thetruth7962 Oh.
first
Maybe a stupid idea: put the e-waste into a container and fly it into space, say to Venus where the planet eats the stuff up. Might be expensive, but could be a contribution to save our planet.
Extremely cost prohibitive. It is a stupid idea. Just ask yourself, who would be willing to pay for all these?
Would be nice to have the point of view from such a metals recylcer, would be more informative, rather than these boring pollution this and pollution that attacks all the time, which makes for boring content.
As I always said new technology is toxic,but it’s ok who am I anyway! Keep polluting the earth…
JUST SMOKE WEED AND FORGET IT.
Interestingly, NTU researchers in their effort to promote upcycling and the circular economy found that plastic e-waste showed no acute toxicity to human cells (10.1016/j.chemosphere.2020.128719) and can even be used to direct stem cells growth (10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.151085) and be used for advanced cell culture applications like drug testing (10.1016/j.resconrec.2023.107297) For of such research should be done to prevent e-waste landing up in landfills and polluting the environment!