Millions of tons of discarded electronics from the United States are quietly flooding Southeast Asia, triggering what environmental watchdogs are calling a "hidden tsunami" of e-waste. A two-year investigation by the Seattle-based Basel Action Network (BAN), released on October 22, 2025, has pulled back the curtain on a growing crisis: American e-waste is being exported in staggering quantities to developing nations, leaving these countries struggling to manage hazardous materials that threaten both people and the environment.
According to BAN’s report, at least 10 U.S. companies have been identified as major players in this trade, funneling used electronics to Asia and the Middle East. These companies—Attan Recycling, Corporate eWaste Solutions (CEWS), Creative Metals Group, EDM, First America Metal Corp., GEM Iron and Metal Inc., Greenland Resource, IQA Metals, PPM Recycling, and Semsotai—have collectively exported more than 10,000 containers of potential e-waste between January 2023 and February 2025, with an estimated value exceeding $1 billion. Industry-wide, the trade could be worth as much as $200 million each month, according to Associated Press.
What’s inside these containers? E-waste consists of discarded devices like phones, computers, and other electronics. These gadgets contain valuable materials but are also laced with toxic metals such as lead, cadmium, and mercury. As consumers upgrade their devices at an ever-accelerating pace, the volume of global e-waste is ballooning—growing five times faster than it is formally recycled. The United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union and its research arm, UNITAR, report that the world produced a record 62 million metric tons of e-waste in 2022, with projections soaring to 82 million metric tons by 2030.
Asia, already responsible for nearly half of the world’s e-waste, is buckling under the added burden of American shipments. Much of this waste is dumped in landfills, where toxic chemicals leach into the soil and waterways. In informal scrapyards, workers—often undocumented and desperate for income—burn or dismantle devices by hand, inhaling toxic fumes and handling hazardous scrap without any protection. As the South China Morning Post notes, this is taking place "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 impact is not just environmental. It’s also a matter of public health and economic justice. SiPeng Wong of Malaysia’s Center to Combat Corruption & Cronyism described the practice as a form of "waste colonialism," saying, "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."
Malaysia has become the primary destination for U.S. e-waste, a shift that occurred after China banned imports of foreign waste in 2017. Many Chinese businesses, once reliant on processing Western waste, relocated to Southeast Asia, using family and business ties to secure permits. "Malaysia suddenly became this mecca of junk," said Jim Puckett, founder of BAN, as quoted by the Economic Times and the Associated Press. The BAN report estimates that U.S. e-waste shipments may have accounted for about 6% of all U.S. exports to Malaysia between 2023 and 2025.
But Malaysia isn’t alone. Containers of American e-waste have also been tracked to Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, and the United Arab Emirates, despite bans under the Basel Convention—an international treaty that prohibits the trade of hazardous waste to non-signatory countries. Notably, the United States remains the only industrialized nation yet to ratify the Basel Convention, leaving it outside the treaty’s legal framework and fueling concerns about regulatory evasion.
Authorities in Southeast Asia are fighting back. In May 2025, Thai officials seized 238 tons of U.S. e-waste at Bangkok’s port. The following month, Malaysian authorities confiscated e-waste worth $118 million in nationwide raids, according to Economic Times and Associated Press reports. Nonetheless, the sheer volume of shipments continues to overwhelm local enforcement efforts.
One of the more troubling aspects of the BAN report is the role of industry certifications. Eight of the ten companies identified as exporters hold R2V3 certifications—an industry standard intended to ensure electronics are recycled safely and responsibly. Yet the report raises serious questions about the effectiveness of these certifications. Several of the companies operate out of California, a state known for strict e-waste laws requiring full reporting and proper downstream handling of electronic and universal waste. The disconnect between certification and practice has led observers to ask whether these standards are truly meaningful.
The companies themselves have responded with a mix of silence, denial, and deflection. Six of the firms did not reply to requests for comment from the Associated Press. Semsotai insisted that it does not export scrap, only working components for reuse, and accused BAN of bias. PPM Recycling stated that it complies with all regulations and handles shipments through certified partners. Greenland Resource said it takes the allegations seriously and is reviewing the matter internally but could not comment further without seeing the report. CEWS claimed it follows strict environmental standards, though it called some aspects of its recycling operations "industrial secrets."
There’s also a glaring issue with how these shipments are labeled. The BAN investigation found that U.S. e-waste containers are often declared under trade codes that do not match those for electronic waste, instead using terms like "commodity materials" or "raw metals" to evade detection by customs. "Such classifications were highly unlikely given how the companies publicly describe their operations," the report said, highlighting a pattern of misrepresentation and regulatory loopholes.
Experts are not surprised by the findings. Tony R. Walker, a global waste trade researcher at Dalhousie University in Canada, explained to the Associated Press that 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 added, "It simply means the country is being overwhelmed with what is essentially pollution transfer from other nations."
The stakes are enormous. As global e-waste production soars and recycling systems struggle to keep pace, the environmental and human cost of this "invisible tsunami" will only grow. The BAN report serves as a wake-up call to policymakers, industry leaders, and consumers alike: the true cost of our gadgets doesn’t end when we toss them in the recycling bin.
For now, the battle over e-waste continues, with Southeast Asian nations on the frontlines. As efforts to control illegal imports intensify, the world is left to reckon with a pressing question: who bears the burden of our digital age’s detritus?