Police have charged the buyer of cadmium waste from Tak who stored tailings in Bangkok and Samut Sakhon with illegally possessing a hazardous substance.
Jetsada Kengrungruangchai is the director of J&B Metal Co based in Samut Sakhon, where authorities earlier this month discovered 13,800 tonnes of cadmium tailings that he had bought from a landfill in Tak province.
More tailings were later found in Chon Buri and at the premises of a company Mr Jetsada owned in Bang Sue district of Bangkok.
Officials checked the facilities and concluded that they did not meet legal requirements for the safe storage of the hazardous substance, said Pol Maj Gen Wacharin Pusit, commander of the police Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division.
Cadmium has many uses, notably in the production of rechargeable batteries, pigments, metal coatings and plastics. Cadmium and its compounds are highly toxic and can cause damage to human tissues and organs when they enter the food chain. Because of this risk, its disposal is tightly regulated.
Pol Maj Gen Wacharin said that J&B Metal bought the tailings under a contract that required the company to dispose of them. The terms did not allow the company to resell the waste. However, police have not yet filed a charge related to the resale, which is also being investigated.
J&B Metal had a licence for the disposal but the disposal equipment it imported from Britain was being repaired, the commander said.
The tailings were purchased from Bound & Beyond Plc at 1.25 baht per kilogramme, he said.
SET-listed Bound & Beyond Plc was formerly known as Padaeng Industry Plc, which operated a zinc-mining business in Tak until 2016. It exited the mining business and disposed of the cadmium waste at several pits constructed in line with environmental protection regulations in Tak. The company now operates a hotel business.
Pol Maj Gen Wacharin said on Thursday that industrial authorities in Samut Sakhon were duty-bound to check the legality of cadmium waste storage in the province.
Speaking to reporters at the offices of the police division, Mr Jetsada said he had earlier planned to export the tailings for melting in Laos where he had a potential Chinese buyer. He expected to resell them for 8.25 baht per kilogramme.
Before that deal could be made, he said, a Mr Zhang contacted him to buy 5,000 tonnes of the tailings and he sold them at 8.25 baht per kilogramme. The buyer took the cadmium waste to Chon Buri.
Mr Jetsada said he had sourced the tailings legally because he had a foundry licence. He said he had been in the business for four decades.
However, he admitted that he did not have any permission to resell the tailings. He said he needed to sell some of the material to shore up the working capital of his companies.
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Officials inspect bags containing cadmium tailings at a J&B Metal foundry in Samut Sakhon early this month. (Police photo)