‘A trash can for the US’: anger in Mexico and Canada over toxic waste shipments
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Exclusive: US companies are increasingly shipping toxic waste to other countries, where some argue it poses a risk. US companies ship more than 1m tons of hazardous waste to other countries each year, raising questions over possible impacts on health and the environment, an investigation by the Guardian and Quinto Elemento Lab has found.
![[Adults and children in a school courtyard.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/8252a0f3fb78751769419fbb04587e85d4a82a4b/0_0_5184_3456/master/5184.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Exports of toxic waste, most of which is shipped to Mexico and Canada, have climbed 17% since 2018, US records show. And while sending it away for recycling and disposal is legal, some experts are concerned that more and more of America’s most dangerous discards are leaving the country.
![[A residential community sits in the shadow of a large industrial facility.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/6f7a1d7402778f51f1f16e8f82aed28e515b6e93/0_0_5184_3456/master/5184.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In the Monterrey metropolitan area in Mexico, the investigation has uncovered high levels of lead, cadmium, and arsenic in homes and schools around a plant that recycles toxic dust produced by the US steel industry. Other huge quantities of waste go to Mexico to battery-recycling plants that experts worry are fouling the air and exposing workers to dangerous heavy metals.
![[Abandoned car batteries are stacked on the ground.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/723d70a7355e00b42a2bc6a3af2178245dfc9da2/0_0_8052_5368/master/8052.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
In Quebec, Canada, children and adults who live near a smelter that processes electronic waste, including materials from Silicon Valley and other US locations, have been found to have high levels of arsenic in their fingernails. At another Quebec site, some of the toxic waste is buried in giant cells near a peat bog.
![[A large industrial facility with plumes of smoke rising over it.]](https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/994c8b039268fff676b16714bb9efebf929af085/0_0_5516_3677/master/5516.jpg?width=445&dpr=1&s=none&crop=none)
Allowing hazardous waste to cross US borders and move out of the country’s regulatory control is particularly a problem, experts say, when the waste ends up going to places where environmental management is outdated, inadequate or nonexistent. That is the case in Mexico, environmentalists there argue.
