Brokers are shipping millions of tons of discarded electronics from the United States abroad, largely to developing countries in Asia and the global South that are unprepared to safely handle the toxic waste, according to a report released Wednesday.

According to Seattle-based watchdog Basel Action Network (BAN), ten large US companies have been shipping significant volumes of e-waste to countries that have banned its import. BAN said the business could add more than $200 million each month. Industry-wide, trade could exceed $200 million a month, BAN estimated.

Between January 2023 and February 2025, such shipments may have accounted for 6% of all U.S. trade with Malaysia, the largest recipient of this hazardous waste flow, it said.

“This new, almost invisible e-waste tsunami is taking place… increasing the already lucrative profit margins of the electronics recycling sector, while allowing a significant portion of the IT equipment of the American public and businesses to be surreptitiously exported and processed under harmful conditions in Southeast Asia.” said.

BAN alleged that the brokers and “largely unregulated intermediaries” facilitated the practice, which “It may contravene certification requirements, legal frameworks and environmental, social and governance (ESG) principles.”

Many of these brokers, who operate in industrial areas east of Los Angeles and promote themselves as “responsible recyclers” In fact, they send e-waste to informal scrapyards abroad while misclassifying the cargo as raw materials or working electronics, according to BAN.

In such facilities, hazardous waste is often processed through open burning, acid leaching and other dangerous methods by undocumented workers without adequate protection, the watchdog said. The subsequent dumping of the by-products also poses long-term risks to the environment and local communities, he added.

E-waste has been on the rise worldwide, reaching a record 62 million metric tons in 2022, and less than a quarter of it is documented as properly recycled, according to UN data. By 2030, the figure is expected to reach 82 million metric tons.

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