The Price of Recycling Old Laptops: Toxic Fumes in Thailand’s Lungs
The e-waste industry is booming in Southeast Asia, frightening residents worried for their health.
Despite a ban on imports, Thailand is a center of the business.
Crouched on the ground in a dimly lit factory, the women picked through the discarded innards of the modern world: batteries, circuit boards and bundles of wires.
As they toiled, smoke spewed over nearby villages and farms. Residents have no idea what is in the smoke.
Thailand in particular has become a center of the industry even as activists push back and its government wrestles to balance competing interests of public safety with the profits to be made from the lucrative trade.
