AMERICANS' ELECTRONIC TRASH IS WREAKING ENVIRONMENTAL HAVOC IN SOUTHEAST ASIA

Millions of discarded electronic devices from the United States are being shipped overseas each month and ending up in countries around Southeast Asia, where a combination of weak regulation, low-cost labour and hostile environments for hazardous waste management is creating a growing humanitarian and environmental crisis.

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According to a recent study, thousands of shipping containers filled with used electronics—many of them broken or obsolete—have arrived in places like Malaysia, Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia. What started as a stream of landfill-destined scrap has become a torrent of toxic devices being processed or dumped under dangerous conditions.

The volume is staggering. The report estimates that from January 2023 through February 2025, more than 10,000 containers—worth over US$1 billion—were reportedly exported by at least 10 U.S. companies to developing countries that lacked the capacities to handle hazardous electronic waste safely. Even on a monthly basis, separate data show around 2,000 containers departing U.S. ports—roughly 33,000 metric tons—pointing to a system that is not only vast but also opaque. Many of the shipments were mis-declared under trade codes that obscured the fact they contained e-waste rather than nonhazardous scrap, thereby evading scrutiny under international treaties such as the Basel Convention.

INFORMAL SCRAP YARDS, POISONED COMMUNITIES