Officials find 1,000 tonnes more cadmium waste in Samut Sakhon
Industry officials and police recovered another 1,000 tonnes cadmium waste in a factory in Samut Sakhon on Sunday, raising to 9,500 tonnes the amount of the hazardous waste taken from a zinc smelter in Tak and inadequately disposed of.
Industry Minister Pimphattra Wichaikul said Samut Sakhon Industrial Office officials and police checked a factory in Tambon Bang Nam Juen and found 1,000 more tonnes of cadmium waste. Cadmium can be carcinogenic if it seeps into water sources.
The factory was set up to smelt copper and recycle copper waste, the minister said.
Some waste bags were found outside the factory building, so officials ordered the factory to move all the bags inside to prevent leakage pending bag to the zinc-ore smelter in Tak where the waste originated.
Recently, Industry Ministry officials checked a zinc ore smelter operated by Bound and Beyond Plc in Tambon Nong Bua Tai in Tak’s Muang district and found that it has sold 13,000 tonnes of cadmium waste to a factory in Samut Sakhon instead of disposing it in a burial ground as required by safety measures.
Officials traced the waste to the factory in Samut Sakhon and found only 2,500 tonnes of cadmium waste there, sending them in search for the rest of the hazardous waste for fear of leakage and causing environmental damage.
On Saturday, officials found 6,000 tonnes of the waste in Chonburi’s Ban Bueng district.
Officials are still trying to locate 3,500 remaining tonnes of the waste to dispose of it as soon as possible.
The industry minister said on Sunday that she has instructed the Tak industrial office to arrange with the industrial offices in Chonburi and Samut Sakhon to transfer the waste back to the zinc-smelter burial ground to be disposed of there.
Earlier, Tak industrial officials found that the zinc ore factory no longer operated and cadmium waste had been transferred from two of its seven burial ponds.
