For over 20 years, Sanit Manisi, 54, a resident of Nong Phawa Village, Bang But Subdistrict, Ban Khai District, Rayong Province, has depended on fish and vegetables in the Nong Phawa pond for food and income.

It was not until 2013, when Win Process constructed an industrial waste recycling factory a kilometre away from his house, that he began to observe the abnormalities.

The company had been smuggling dangerous industrial waste into Nong Phawa for years; its malpractice has severely damaged lives in the area. Foul smells have risen up from the pond, the water has turned yellow, the fish have all died, disease has plagued his friend’s frog farm, and many rubber trees in villagers’ plantations stand dead.

All of this happened amid public protests and without official authorisation. Operating licenses were issued, but no treatment or proper disposal facilities were set up.

The only things that can be seen are chemical containers being shipped in, and the staggering damage changing villagers’ way of life and inflicting serious illnesses on them.

“What we used to be able to gather, fish and vegetables, to eat and sell, nowadays we have to buy it all. That area cannot be restored to what it was ten years ago.”

“Many villagers have the same illness, chronic kidney disease. In my case, after the fire, I had a physical exam and found that I had acute kidney failure,” said Sanit.

On 22-25 April 2024, a fire broke out at Win Process’s  Warehouse 5. Some of the stockpiled waste burned, sending pollution into the air.

In 2022, 15 Nong Phawa villagers won a civil case against Win Process for causing pollution that damaged a wide area of farmland. The court ordered compensation of 20,823,714 baht (around US$663,000) to the villagers. To this day, they have yet to receive a single penny.

Sanit Manisi, a Nong Phawa villager (File photo, taken in March 2024 by EARTH Foundation)

The fate of the Nong Phawa villagers may not be the last of its kind. Data gathered by Ecological Alert and Recovery - Thailand (EARTH), a foundation that has long been monitoring environmental crime, found similar problems across the country, where the unchecked rise of waste treatment factories causes harm as they operate without accountability.

Prachatai presents the root causes of the long-standing existence of industrial waste factories of poor quality in Thailand, and a way to address these issues.

What is Industrial waste?

Industrial waste is material that is no longer of use after a manufacturing process has been completed. In form it can be liquid, oil, solid dregs, or gas, depending on the industry source and the processes used.

Industrial waste can be split into two main types. The first kind, general waste, such as scrap metal, plastic, or scrap paper, does not require a special treatment process. The second kind, hazardous waste, poses a threat to health and the environment and requires specialised and costly recycling and treatment processes. Examples include cadmium waste, chemical residues, and acid residues from oil plating.

In the waste treatment industry, there are four main actors:

1. Waste Generators (WG) whose business creates waste;
2. Waste Processors (WP), whose function is to eliminate the waste;
3. Waste Transporters (WT), who transport waste from WGs to WPs (in some cases, WGs or WPs may transport the material themselves);
4. Department of Industrial Works and Provincial Industrial Works Offices, Ministry of Industry, the regulator that issues factory licenses and authorises waste transportation from WGs to WPs.

Win Process factory in 2024 (Photo by Nattaphon Phanphongsanon)

From ‘Land of Smiles’ to ‘Landfill’

Observations from civil society found that the NCPO Order 4/2559 issued by the military junta has led to an increase in the number of waste processors and recyclers over the past couple of years.

Penchom Saetang, EARTH’s Executive Director said the rise of the junta in 2014 coincided with the period when mounting industrial waste became a major environmental problem.

With input primarily from the private sector, the junta concluded that it needed to deregulate the waste processor authorisation process to allow more players to address the issue.

Those regulations, such as the city zoning law or the requirement to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), were provisions that people usually cited in protests against the construction of polluting factories.

The Gen Prayut Chan-o-cha administration issued NCPO Order 4/2559, waiving the city zoning law that had regulated the construction of waste-to-energy plants, landfills, waste sorting plants, and waste recycling factories.

Order 4/2559 allows these three types of factory to be built in rural and agricultural areas where they were previously prohibited under the city zoning law. Further provisions also allowed recycling factories to bypass the EIA requirement and abolished the construction authorisation limit of 20 provinces to a countrywide authorisation.

The change has led to a rise in the number of factories in categories 105 and 106 which spread across the country and were sited in neighbourhoods, creating another problem: massive secret dumping without proper treatment that damages the lives of those nearby.

“An EIA is not required for factories in category 106, and this is a major loophole that leads to many more cases like the Wax Garbage case in Ratchaburi, the Nong Phawa case, and cases in Rayong, Nakhon Ratchasima, Phetchabun, Ayutthaya and elsewhere,” said the EARTH director.

Data shown that these factories are still increasing in number to this day.

According to EARTH data, in 2023 there were 72,846 waste-generating factories and 2,718 waste processing factories. Among the waste processing factories, 144 were licensed under category 101, 1,581 under category 105, and 933 under category 106.

September 2025 data from the Department of Industrial Works shows 1,785 factories under category 105, and 1,125 under category 106, a significant increase.

In September 2023, Akanat Promphan, the then Industry Minister, declared a suspension on recycling factory construction and extensions countrywide due to mounting concerns from the people.

However, the government changed before the order came into effect.

Fewer incidents, more complex storm ahead

In all the data that EARTH was able to compile throughout 2024, it found 35 cases of wastewater being released to the environment. Among them, seven involved industrial waste dumping.

The top 5 categories of factory involved in secret dumping were:

1. Industrial waste recycling and disposal plants
2. Food and beverage plants
3. Plastic manufacturers
4. Animal-related factories
5. Agricultural product processors

This tally was taken from secondary sources as official statistics for that year had not yet been published. The actual number of dumping cases may be greater.

EARTH also pointed out that despite a decrease in dumping in 2024, the cases in Nong Phawa, Aek U Thai Co in Ayutthaya, Phetchabun, and Nakhon Ratchasima, or the Chinese recycling factory in Prachinburi demonstrate a new form of stashing, secret dumping, and burial in the plants and nearby.

Cheap treatment, expensive environmental cost

One factor contributing to secret waste dumping is that owners choose to rely on providers who offer low cost but may not actual treat the waste, according to EARTH.

Explaining the price problem, Narathip Thongthanom, EARTH communications officer, started with IBC tanks, containers capable of storing 1,000 litres, and 200-litre tanks that could be seen in abundance in Nong Phawa’s Win Process plant.

IBC tanks after the fire at the Win Process plant in April 2024 , Nong Phawa village, Tambon Bang But, Ban Khai District, Rayong Province. (Photo by Nattaphon Phanphongsanon)

These tanks were filled with acid used to strip paint from metal for recycling. Typically, it costs at least 10,000 baht (about US$318) to dispose of a ton of this acid. However, Win Process and Aek U Thai, both owned by Ophat Bunchan, charged about 1,800-2,000 baht.

The Department of Industrial Works found that Aek U Thai Co alone has 89,700 tons of this chemical, meaning that the company can make about 170 million baht by disposing of it cheaply.

In the Aek U Thai case, the EARTH communications officer said it offered a low price because it intended just to store the material in rented warehouses, not to dispose of it properly.

“The value is very high when you compare it with the fine. It is worth it, no matter how you look at it,” said Narathip.

To solve this problem, a Departmental Regulation Addressing Waste or Unused Material was issued in 2023, requiring the waste generator to be responsible for its waste until the waste processor completely disposes of it.

It takes two to tango: a systematic problem of secret dumping

Despite strict regulations, secret dumping still runs rampant. A contributing factor to this mayhem is corruption.

When a waste treatment factory is set up, the law requires it to have a ‘lab’ to examine, sort, and dispose of waste according to the type of waste.

But in reality, there seems to be a way around this. Penchom said there were factories authorised to operate but lacking crucial assets, such as the Win Process branches in Nong Phawa and Khod Hin in Rayong.

“No warehouse, no landfill site. There are only buildings and offices. No lab to conduct testing. Therefore, this licensing process can be seen as corrupt,” said Penchom.

In waste transportation, the law demands that the waste generator announce clear details about disposal, including the type and amount of waste and the license plate of the transporting vehicle . GPS tracking must be installed to confirm the transporter is at the correct destination. Upon arrival, the waste processor must declare and recheck the weight of waste.

In reality, however, factory owners still manage to find a way around this by moving GPS trackers, allowing waste transporters to roam freely.

In 2022, Green News reported that the Department of Industrial Works had filed over 50,000 charges for waste smuggling. However, no details and case updates were provided.

“It is not that a waste transporter can dump somewhere without anyone knowing. The Department of Highways must connive in this.

“What I want to communicate is that it is not something that can be done by a single company, but a whole team. From beginning to end, it allows secret waste dumping to persist for so long,” said Penchom.

The unbearable lightness of legal penalties

Another factor that leads to unregulated waste dumping is the weakness of legal penalties that cannot deter violations.

Thitipat Chotidechachainan, the ‘Sud-Soi’ team leader from the Industry Ministry, said a Ministry Regulation, in accordance with Section 45 of the 1992 Factory Act, provides that violations of industrial waste regulations carry a one-year statute of limitations, with a fine of up to 200,000 baht.

Meanwhile, dumping hazardous waste as described under the 1960 Hazardous Substances Act carries up to two years imprisonment, or fines of up to 200,000 baht, or both. It carries a 10-year statute of limitations.

Thitipat Chotidechachainan (Photo by Kotcharak Kaewsurach)

The secret dumping of ordinary and hazardous chemical waste carries the risk of relatively mild punishment when compared to the profit to be made.

Akaradej Wongpitakroj, Ratchaburi MP for the United Thai Nation Party, agreed that the old law has many loopholes. He cited a past case where a factory was criminally tried and levied a fine of 300,000 baht, while the factory could save 70 million baht over five years of wrongdoing.

The case of Ophat was a special one, however. The prosecutor pursued a charge of discarding poisonous water into public water sources under Sections 228 and 337, which carry 6 months to 10 years imprisonment and a fine of 100,000-200,000 baht, giving Ophat a longer prison sentence.

Some complained that the Nong Phawa case should also prosecute officials for malfeasance, as they allowed the problem to linger on. However, no officials have been put on trial as of now.

Besides light sentences, the short statutes of limitations are a hurdle to bringing wrongdoers to account. The one-year timeframe does not leave much time for prosecution, which may require action from the police, prosecutors, and environmental agencies.

Increasing the punishment under the Factory Act is under consideration. Thitipat said the aim is to pass the amended Act, with Akanat as chair of the special amendment committee, within two months before parliament's dissolution.

Should it be approved, the new law would increase fines to 200,000-10 million baht, depending on the extent of the wrongdoing. It would also increase the jail time to up to five years.

‘They did it, but it’s our taxes that are used to fix it,’

Even though Ophat died of illness in detention, the legacy of troubles stemming from Win Process has yet to be compensated.

On the Win Process case of smuggling 7,000 tons of aluminium dross out for treatment, Thitipat said the liquid chemical left under the company’s ground would be removed. The operation budget will come from the 4.9 million baht that the company deposited with the court, according to Thitipat.

On the other hand, cleaning up the whole factory will take place at the end of 2026. A source said the operation costs would be covered by government budget.

“Why must we use our tax money to compensate a business owner who has no responsibility to society?” said Thitipat.

Before Sud-Soi ceased their role due to the change in government, many agencies reached out to them to continue their enforcement and follow-up on rehabilitation. Further progress on the ground will be an on-site examination by the Industrial Waste Management Division in early 2026.

At Nong Phawa Village, Sanit said people still have adapt to survive. As water contamination has made fishing and farming impossible, villagers had to become daily labourers, some scavenging garbage to get by.

“We want them (the authorities) to solve this properly. Come in to do a conscientious job. Don’t come and talk about doing your duty. I want commitment, not just doing your duty. If they do it wholeheartedly, they must see the problem,” said Sanit.