Rayong provincial court yesterday ordered Win Process Co -- a hazardous waste recycling company -- to clean up toxic waste contamination and pay 20.82-million-baht compensation to villagers who had been forced to suffer the effects of the contamination for a decade.
The lawsuit was filed last year by 15 plaintiffs against the company and two executives. Villagers alleged that hazardous waste -- mostly in the form of heavy metals, lubricants, solvents, and chemicals from petrochemical plants in Rayong province -- had been contaminating farmland and public water resources since 2012.
The Pollution Control Department (PCD) last year demanded the company pay compensation of more than 1.3 billion baht for damage caused to the environment and a community near its factory.
Founded in 2010, the recycling factory at the heart of the dispute is located in Village 4 of Bang But sub-district of Ban Khai district, which is well known as a rubber plantation community. The company has long been in conflict with the local community, which is fearful of the environmental impact of its activities. Their fears are not imagined.
Indeed, it is the ludicrous industrial ministerial regulations requiring wastewater treatment and garbage incinerating plants to submit environmental impact assessments prior to getting the green light but letting recycling plants set up and begin commercial activities, no matter the nature of the waste they propose to recycle that must been questioned.
The lawsuit is just the first round in a long battle ahead. Despite winning the verdict, the plaintiffs still cannot be certain that they will receive any compensation at all, as the company is entitled to lodge appeals all the way up to the Supreme Court. If that is the case, the lawsuit may take several more years to complete.
Regardless of the final outcome, the court verdict sheds light on the dark side of the waste recycling industry, which is a major component of the bio-circular economy model.
This case is not the first of its kind. In 2020, residents of a village in tambon Nam Phu of Ratchaburi's Muang district won a court battle with Wax Garbage Recycle Centre Co after it was found to have polluted the local environment, which negatively impacted their health.
Next year, villagers in Chachoengsao province are planning to sue a similar facility in Phanom Sarakham district, according to the Ecological Alert and Recovery-Thailand environmental group that assists villagers affected by industrial pollution. As well as litigation, there are a number of reports of recycling factories on the eastern seaboard importing hazardous waste, such as electronics, from wealthy countries.
It is also worth mentioning that as the court reached its verdict yesterday, Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha was busy promoting the government's BCG model at the Asean-EU summit in Brussels, after aggrandizing the same feelgood economic model at the Apec meeting in Bangkok last month.
Make no mistake, recycling is good for the environment, but only if it is carried out properly. It is not enough for the government to talk up the feel-good factor of its BCG blueprint without also ensuring that tangential businesses set to enjoy a boost also clean up their act.
Recycling is an activity that can be as harmful and polluting as the waste it processes, and therefore needs more stringent environmental oversight, not less.
