American e-waste is causing a 'hidden tsunami' in Southeast Asia, report says

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American e-waste is causing a 'hidden tsunami' in Southeast Asia, report says

2025-10-23 14:29 Last Updated At：14:30

HANOI, Vietnam (AP) — Millions of tons of discarded electronics from the United States are being shipped overseas, much of it to developing countries in Southeast Asia unprepared to safely handle hazardous waste, according to a new report released Wednesday by an environmental watchdog.

The Seattle-based Basel Action Network, or BAN, said a two-year investigation found at least 10 U.S. companies exporting used electronics to Asia and the Middle East, in what it says is a “hidden tsunami” of electronic waste.

“This new, almost invisible tsunami of e-waste, is taking place ... padding already lucrative profit margins of the electronics recycling sector while allowing a major portion of the American public’s and corporate IT equipment to be surreptitiously exported to and processed under harmful conditions in Southeast Asia,” the report said.

Electronic waste, or e-waste, includes discarded devices like phones and computers containing both valuable materials and toxic metals like lead, cadmium and mercury. As gadgets are replaced faster, global e-waste is growing five times quicker than it’s formally recycled.

The world produced a record 62 million metric tons in 2022. That's expected to climb to 82 million by 2030, according to the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union and its research arm, UNITAR.

That American e-waste adds to the burden for Asia, which already produces nearly half the world’s total. Much of it is dumped in landfills, leaching toxic chemicals into the environment. Some ends up in informal scrapyards, where workers burn or dismantle devices by hand, often without protection, releasing toxic fumes and scrap.

About 2,000 containers — roughly 33,000 metric tons (36,376 U.S. tons) — of used electronics leave U.S. ports every month, according to the report. It said the companies behind the shipments, described as “e-waste brokers,” typically don’t recycle the waste themselves but send it to companies in developing countries.

The companies identified in the report include Attan Recycling, Corporate eWaste Solutions or CEWS, Creative Metals Group, EDM, First America Metal Corp., GEM Iron and Metal Inc., Greenland Resource, IQA Metals, PPM Recycling and Semsotai.

Six of the companies didn't immediately respond to emailed requests for comment.

Semsotai told The Associated Press that it doesn't export scrap, only working components for reuse. It accused BAN of bias.

PPM Recycling told The Associated Press that its warehouses in California and Texas ship only aluminum and other non-iron metals to Malaysia. It said BAN had exaggerated shipment volumes, adding that it used accurate trade codes and followed U.S. and international rules.

Greenland Resource told The Associated Press it took the allegations seriously and was reviewing the matter internally and couldn’t comment further without seeing the report.

CEWS said it follows strict environmental standards, but some aspects of where and how recycled materials are handled are industrial secrets.

The report estimated that between January 2023 and February 2025, the 10 companies exported more than 10,000 containers of potential e-waste valued at over $1 billion, the report said. Industrywide, such trade could top $200 million a month.

Eight of the 10 identified companies hold R2V3 certifications — an industry standard meant to ensure electronics are recycled safely and responsibly, raising questions about the value of such a certification, the report said.

Several companies operate out of California, despite the state’s strict e-waste laws requiring full reporting and proper downstream handling of electronic and universal waste.

Many e-waste containers go to countries that have banned such imports under the Basel Convention, which is an international treaty that bars hazardous waste trade from non-signatories like the U.S., the only industrialized nation yet to ratify it.

The nonprofit said its review of government and private trade records from ships and customs officials showed shipments were often declared under trade codes that did not match those for electronic waste, such as “commodity materials” like raw metals or other recyclable goods to evade detection. Such classifications were “highly unlikely” given how the companies publicly describe their operations, the report said.

Tony R. Walker, who studies global waste trade at the Dalhousie University’s School for Resource and Environmental Studies in Halifax in Canada, said he wasn’t surprised that e-waste continues to evade regulation. While some devices can be legally traded if functional, most such exports to developing nations are broken or obsolete and mislabeled, bound for landfills that pollute the environment and have little market value, he said.

He pointed to Malaysia — a Basel Convention signatory identified in the report as the primary destination for U.S. e-waste — saying the country would be overwhelmed by that volume, in addition to waste from other wealthy nations.

“It simply means the country is being overwhelmed with what is essentially pollution transfer from other nations,” he said.

The report estimates that U.S. e-waste shipments may have made up about 6% of all U.S. exports to the country from 2023 to 2025. After China banned imports of foreign waste in 2017, many Chinese businesses shifted their operations to Southeast Asia, using family and business ties to secure permits.

“Malaysia suddenly became this mecca of junk,” said Jim Puckett of the Basel Action Network.

Containers were also sent to Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines and the UAE, despite bans under the Basel Convention and national laws, the report added.

In countries receiving this U.S. e-waste, "undocumented workers desperate for jobs" toil in makeshift facilities, inhaling toxic fumes as they strip wires, melt plastics and dismantle devices without protection, the report said.

Authorities in Thailand and Malaysia have stepped up efforts to curb illegal imports of U.S. e-waste.

In May, Thai authorities seized 238 tons of U.S. e-waste at Bangkok’s port seized 238 tons of U.S. scrap at Bangkok’s port while Malaysian authorities confiscated e-waste worth $118 million in nationwide raids in June.

Most of the facilities in Malaysia were illegal and lacked environmental safeguards, said SiPeng Wong, of Malaysia’s Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism.

Exporting e-waste from rich nations to developing nations strains local facilities, overwhelms efforts to manage domestic waste and is a form of “waste colonialism,” she said.

This story has been corrected to show that one of the companies identified in the report is called First America Metal Corp., not First American Metals.

What to know about South Sudan's major offensive against opposition forces

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — South Sudan’s army, following territorial losses in recent weeks, has announced a major military operation against opposition forces, raising fears for civilian safety.

In a statement on Sunday, army spokesman Lul Ruai Koang said Operation Enduring Peace would commence and ordered civilians to evacuate three counties in Jonglei state immediately. He directed aid groups to leave within 48 hours.

Koang told The Associated Press on Monday that the operation aims to recapture towns recently seized by opposition forces and “reestablish law and order.”

The announcement came a day after a senior army commander was filmed urging his troops to kill civilians and destroy property in the Jonglei offensive, drawing rebuke from the U.N. and others.

Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, who chairs the African Union Commission, said he felt “deep concern over the deteriorating security situation in parts” of South Sudan. His statement also said Youssouf was "gravely alarmed by reports of inflammatory rhetoric and actions" that could incite violence against civilians.

“It is now indisputable: South Sudan has returned to war,” said Alan Boswell of the International Crisis Group. “It is incredibly tragic for a country that only grows weaker and poorer.”

Here’s what to know about the conflict in South Sudan:

Beginning in December, a coalition of opposition forces seized a string of government outposts in central Jonglei, a region that is the homeland of the Nuer ethnic group and an opposition stronghold.

Some of those forces are loyal to opposition leader Riek Machar, while others consider themselves part of an ethnic Nuer militia called the White Army. White Army fighters have historically fought alongside Machar but consider themselves a distinct group.

Machar, an ethnic Nuer, was made the most senior of five vice presidents under a 2018 peace agreement that ended fighting between his forces and those loyal to President Salva Kiir, an ethnic Dinka, the country’s largest group. That five-year civil war was waged largely along ethnic lines, killing an estimated 400,000 people.

But there has been a resurgence of violence in the past year, with sporadic fighting.

Machar was suspended last year as South Sudan’s No. 2 after White Army fighters overran a military garrison in the town of Nasir. He now faces treason and other charges over that attack, which authorities allege Machar helped orchestrate. But Machar’s allies and some international observers say the charges are politically motivated. He remains under house arrest while his trial unfolds slowly in the capital, Juba.

Machar’s trial is widely seen as a violation of the 2018 peace agreement. Yet Kiir and his allies say the agreement is still being implemented, pointing to a faction of the opposition still in the unity government.

Forces loyal to Machar have declared the agreement dead, and have since ratcheted up pressure on the army by seizing armories and launching hit-and-run attacks on government positions. The government has relied largely on aerial bombardments to beat back a rebellion that analysts say is gaining momentum across multiple states.

After seizing the government outpost of Pajut in Jonglei on Jan. 16, opposition forces threatened to advance toward Juba. The government has responded by amassing fighters in nearby Poktap, while several thousand Ugandan soldiers defend Juba.

Army chief Paul Nang gave his troops one week to “crush the rebellion” in Jonglei.

On Saturday, a day before the army announced its offensive, a senior military commander was filmed urging his forces to kill all civilians and destroy property during operations in Jonglei. It was not clear who took the video, which has been shared on social media.

“Spare no lives,” Gen. Johnson Olony told forces in Duk county, not far from Pajut. “When we arrive there, don’t spare an elderly, don’t spare a chicken, don’t spare a house or anything.”

Armed groups in South Sudan, including the military, have repeatedly been implicated in civilian abuses, including sexual violence and forced recruitment.

Olony’s comments were particularly aggressive, and drew concern. “We are shocked, we are disturbed, we are surprised,” said Edmund Yakani, a prominent civic leader.

Olony’s words showed that government troops were being “empowered to commit atrocities, to commit crimes against humanity, and, potentially, even to commit a genocide,” he said.

The U.N. Commission on Human Rights in South Sudan expressed “grave alarm” at developments that it said “significantly heighten the risk of mass violence against civilians.”

Machar’s political group said in a statement that Olony’s words were an “early indicator of genocidal intent.”

Speaking to the AP, government spokesman Ateny Wek Ateny called Olony’s comments “uncalled for” and “a slip of the tongue.”

But he also said that while it was possible Olony was “trying to boost the morale of his forces,” his words are not indicative of government policy.

Olony, appointed assistant chief of defense forces for mobilization and disarmament a year ago, also leads a militia, known as the Agwelek, from his Shilluk tribe that agreed to integrate into the army last year.

Olony’s deployment to Nuer communities is contentious because of a separate rivalry between the Shilluk and Nuer communities. In 2022, White Army fighters razed Shilluk villages and displaced thousands of civilians before the government intervened with attack helicopters.

Olony’s forces were also involved in military operations in other Nuer communities last year.

Deploying him to Jonglei “is incendiary,” said Joshua Craze, an independent analyst and writer on South Sudan. “His presence in the state is a propaganda gift to the opposition in its mobilization efforts.”