Myanmar’s mines pollute Thai rivers

An investigation by Mongabay found that chemicals linked to mining operations in Myanmar have poisoned large stretches of Thai farmland, carried across the border by at least six transboundary rivers. More than 50 Thai companies import minerals including antimony, copper, lead, manganese, tin and tungsten from Myanmar's mines, a trade worth millions of dollars that mostly ends with the minerals sold onward to China.

Few of the Thai companies involved reportedly know which mines their minerals come from, whether those mines are even legal, or whether the shipments contain what their paperwork claims. Meanwhile downstream communities are left with contaminated water, damaged food supplies and a public health crisis with no company willing to claim responsibility for it.

The full dispatch is available from the source below.