6 ms·

Agbogbloshie, the world's largest e-waste dump

107 points by jpatokal 12y ago

seunosewa 12y ago
Yes, this is a terrible problem, but: what's the solution?
- mclemme 12y ago
  If people would only stop buying stuff they don't need, but that seems to be the driving force of the modern consumer society. The norm where I live seems to be to purchase new computers, smartphones, etc. every 6-24 months (phones more often compared to computers). Whereas the more frugal people I know mostly purchase new electronics when the old item has truly and utterly died without the possibility of repair. But assuming that will not change in the near future it seems that selling refurbished electronics at cheaper prices as well as improving the manufacturing process to use less toxic materials, could help quite a bit. An example of refurbished electronics I saw in the news the other day here in Denmark is http://www.brugteiphones.dk/ http://www.brugteiphones.dk/ buying up old broken iphones, repairing and selling them, they seem to be growing pretty fast.
  - danieldk 12y ago
    The norm where I live seems to be to purchase new computers, smartphones, etc. every 6-24 months (phones more often compared to computers). While a computer can last a decade for most consumers, especially with the long support cycles of Windows and/or Linux' support for low-end hardware, phones are pretty much obsolete in no time: they don't get security updates, apps become unbearable (since their developers have the latest & greatest), etc. Planned obsolescence. This is one of the reasons that I argue that e.g. the EU should intervene. Phone manufactures and/or carriers should at the very least provide security updates for a reasonable period. Another option would be to make unlocked boot loaders mandatory, so that consumers can easily replace firmware.
- onion2k 12y ago
  The people of the countries that violate agreements, or that don't ratify the agreements in the first place, voting their politicians out of power and replacing them with politicians who believe being a good citizen of the world is more important than making a quick profit or offloading problems on to other countries. If voting doesn't work then bloody revolution could be an option.
- vetler 12y ago
  Stricter laws on proper recycling?
  - seunosewa 12y ago
    Apparently only a fraction of the waste is recyclable, so if it isn't dumped there it may have to be dumped somewhere else...
    - sjtrny 12y ago
      Rubbish. Almost everything is recycleable. The cost of recycling almost everything at the moment is just massively lower than dumping it.
      - ptaipale 12y ago
        You mean higher, not lower?
        sjtrny 12y ago
        Yes.
      - aidos 12y ago
        I'm going through an extremely frustrating experience at the moment in that I have a washing machine that's just died. It's only 3 years old and just out of warranty - other than the bearings that need replacing, it's in perfect health. Naturally, I order the bearings I need and start taking the machine to bits. Low and behold, the tub, which can traditionally be split and bolted back together again is now sealed so you can't service it. Now I have the choice of buying a whole new tub assembly (including drum and bearings), at £200, or just buying a whole new machine. But really, I have little choice in the situation. A new machine won't cost much more but will come with a 3-5 year warranty. As a consumer, I only have one reasonable choice to make - but it's the one that's totally wasteful.
        12y ago
- acomjean 12y ago
  Government regulation and laws. Really with pollution the incentive in capitalism is to just pollute, and not deal with waste properly. It is cheaper almost always and following regulations if they even exist usually eats into profit. I used to work for an environmental engineering firm that had to do some site clean-ups in a previous career. Companies hate being forced to pay to clean up their messes, its one of the big incentives not to pollute, as that certainly eats into profits. creating less waste is a good goal too (shaving weight from a phone your going to sell millions of saves a lot of resources) or as a consumer buying less means you'll throw away less (swap in an ssd for your hard drive to keep that computer another year..). Computers and phones keep getting better and better (more energy efficient too), so there is a strong motivation to upgrade (although this is less stong then it used to be).
  - ptaipale 12y ago
    Yep, government regulation and laws. The question is: which government? Normally one would expect that in the areas were this work is done, the local governments take care of environmental and work safety regulations and laws. But they don't - due to greed, corruption and whatever. So should, for example, OECD countries forbid export of electric waste to non-OECD countries, to enforce proper disposal of hazardous materials and recycling? I don't have very clear answers to this, because there are obvious reasons both ways (do we want to exclude poor countries from the world markets?). But I think it is a good question.
    - DanBC 12y ago
      There are existig laws to prevent e-waste dumping -- most of the e-waste from the EU in Agbogbloshie was illegally exported. http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/new-law-seeks-limit-dumping-wast-news-514282 http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/new-law-seeks-limit-d...
      - ptaipale 12y ago
        Yes, in addition to laws and regulations, there needs to be enforcement, otherwise they do nothing.
- pjc50 12y ago
  The EU's WEEE is supposed to be the solution to this. It imposes requirements on manufacturers and distributors to take back discarded products: http://www.valpak.co.uk/compliance-services/weee http://www.valpak.co.uk/compliance-services/weee The actual implementation is a bit more fraught e.g. http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-general-electrical-forum/66826-wholesalers-own-weee-charge.html http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-general... (supposed to be free for domestic purposes and therefore "invisible", but not necessarily for commercial). Especially in a context of phasing out the easily disposable incandescent bulbs in favour of CCFL or LED which aren't so safe to landfill. Once the products have been returned they're supposed to be recycled. No doubt some of them end up being shipped to Ghana even though this is not supposed to happen. Ultimately the solution is longer-lasting less obsolete products, but that's "bad for the economy" when the economy is transaction-focused.
sveme 12y ago
Some impressive pictures from Kevin McElvaney: http://www.derkevin.com/Agbogbloshie.html http://www.derkevin.com/Agbogbloshie.html
- jpatokal 12y ago
  Video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSbPjtY2YPg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSbPjtY2YPg&feature=youtu.be
francoisf 12y ago
This is something I can't get out of my head: as a tech user (and as an IT worker), I am an active part of the e-waste problem. I always find it hard to relate to some tech enthusiasts that often appear to me like compulsive, irresponsible buyers. I can't help but ask myself: can a culture shift within the IT community lead to raise awareness among the larger public?
- Infinitesimus 12y ago
  When I saw the post on the fp of HN, my first reaction was "hey wait I know that name... ohh..ooohhh". (Disclaimer: Ghanaian here. Currently an SE in the US ) I think a culture shift in the IT community will definitely make the message loud, but the truth is that this dump comes from businesses who deal primarily with the average consumer, not the tech-savvy minority. And until the majority cares, nothing is going to change unfortunately. Every step in that direction helps though, by all means, we as a community need to be much more vocal about this (well, be concerned first of all)
  - davedx 12y ago
    "Early adopters" are a much smaller segment of the market, true, but they also buy a ton more stuff than regular people by definition. :)
    - 67726e 12y ago
      Without seeing numbers, I would highly doubt that premise. Sure, the maybe a couple hundred thousand geeks will buy a few more laptops and phones, but the couple hundred million consumers will surely win by volume, no? (Strictly speaking US here)
jpatokal 12y ago
I've seen a fair bit of poverty in my travels around Africa and elsewhere, but I'm still rather astonished by how utterly and totally low-tech and unorganized this is: it's literally just a bunch of people scrabbling about heaps of garbage on an open field, only that garbage has been carted in from the other side of the world! For example, you'd think it would be worth it for somebody to set up some sort of smelter where you could bring your cables to get the plastic melted off, but when labor is essentially free and the competition is Darwinian, it's unlikely any scavenger would pay for such a service when they could just sit around an open flame instead. And for an even more Dantean version of this, Glawegger's Workingman's Death covers a Nigerian slaughterfield in Port Harcourt. (And yes, the footage is pretty damn disturbing.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukSAfBulphU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukSAfBulphU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workingman%27s_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workingman%27s_Death
- zhte415 12y ago
  Given the low tech nature, a lot of the 'value' could have already been extracted via any widespread method, and this is the byproduct of already processed recyclables being sold on. I highly recommend the book Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter, who follows the global scrap trade. Link to his site: http://shanghaiscrap.com/books/junkyard-planet/ http://shanghaiscrap.com/books/junkyard-planet/ Link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion-Dollar-Trash/dp/1480592870 http://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion-Dollar...
- rasz_pl 12y ago
  You only see most primitive and dirty last stage. Showing anything before (fixing and reusing whole products) wouldnt be sexy enough. Its like those tent city documentary movies, think Michael Moore.
izietto 12y ago
Africa is the shame of western society
- izietto 12y ago
  You can downvote me, but that's the point. Western countries go on exploiting Africa for its space and its resources, and then can't handle their inhabitants migrations. A shame, what else.
TeMPOraL 12y ago
Ok, so how can we make cleaning this mess up profitable?
- normloman 12y ago
  That shouldn't be the first question you ask. Plenty of problems have market-based solutions. But some don't. This is a matter of regulation and law enforcement.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    It's not usually the first question I ask. There is, however, already a subthread discussing legal approach. But since HN has a lot of smart, business-minded people, I thought it would be worth discussing commercial options.
    - thisisandyok 12y ago
      I'm inclined to agree. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but I've always admired businesses that are able to charge one company for removal, then sell those same goods to someone else. My favorite (though fictional) example of this: http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Harry_King http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Harry_King
- gambiting 12y ago
  If you make cleaning it up profitable, then it will attract more waste. What you want is to stop sending e-waste to Ghana in the first place.
  - TeMPOraL 12y ago
    If they could recycle this waste into something useful and make a business out of it, I think we'd want to send more waste there. It's better to have it recycled in Ghana than have it not recycled at all. Their economy would also be happy.
    - 12y ago
henrykohl4 12y ago
There are homegrown solutions in the pipeline, I worked with a couple of guys on a project there: http://accrareport.com/feature/agbogbloshie-a-local-solution-for-a-global-tragedy/ http://accrareport.com/feature/agbogbloshie-a-local-solution... http://accrareport.com/feature/e-waste-in-ghana-where-death-is-the-price-of-living-another-day/ http://accrareport.com/feature/e-waste-in-ghana-where-death-...
kwiens 12y ago
I've spent some time there and I can share a first-hand perspective. It looks like a dump in the pictures, but it's not. It's an active scrapyard. No material stays in Agbogbloshie for very long. Electronics show up, are mined for raw materials in crude fashion, and then the raw material is sold. Unprofitable material like copper cable jackets are burned. Some of the footage I shot is in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwLUnd_ydI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwLUnd_ydI The other thing about Agbogbloshie nobody talks about: encircling the scrapyard is a huge repair yard where people fix everything they possibly can. It's only the stuff that can't get fixed and resold that goes to the urban mine.
cellularmitosis 12y ago
I have a cardboard box with a decade's worth of personal e waste. I see articles like this and wonder if I would better serve the world by simply putting it in the dumpster. It would likely pollute our ground water locally, but perhaps that's better than being burned in Ghana? What do HNers do with their e waste?
WR3A 12y ago
These western descriptions of Agbogloshie are really becoming a farce. It's the scrap dump where African generate cars and old appliances go. It is not the repair hub. There are ZERO sea containers of Western e-junk showing up. NONE. The place handles less per day than the average e-waste processor in Indiana. The World Bank stats show that Accra has 4.5M residents, and the majority of households have had TV and computers for a decade. They buy used working electronics because the average income is under $3K. But it's obscene that environmentalists go to a dump and take pictures of kids and raise money and don't tell the truth about the waste origins and don't share any money with the kids. I'm going back at the end of the month. Just stop it people. (With all due respect, You too, Kyle). Your video says you saw no evidence of repair, it's the scrapyard it isn't where the repair is done and it isn't where the sea containers arrive. And this has all been painstakingly documented in major reports! http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWaste/E-wasteAssessmentGhana.pdf http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWast... http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWaste/EwasteAfrica_Nigeria-Assessment.pdf http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWast... And the original source of the statistic that it's the biggest e-waste dump in the world, junking 80%, made it up. Look! http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/05/basel-action-network-explains-80-or.html http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/05/basel-action-network-... This is environmental malpractice.
WR3A 12y ago
Four comprehensive studies have found that 85%, 87%, 91%, or 93% is reused. The sea containers go to another part of town, where the geeks and technicians are. Agbogbloshie is mostly managing used scrap (cars, appliances, electronics) generated by the 4.5M inhabitants of Accra. Over half the households in Accra had television in 2003. Links to Ghana specific studies here http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/06/21/231250/uk-man-sentenced-to-16-months-for-exporting-e-waste-despite-91-reuse http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/06/21/231250/uk-man-senten...

107 points by jpatokal 12y ago

seunosewa 12y ago

Yes, this is a terrible problem, but: what's the solution?

mclemme 12y ago
If people would only stop buying stuff they don't need, but that seems to be the driving force of the modern consumer society. The norm where I live seems to be to purchase new computers, smartphones, etc. every 6-24 months (phones more often compared to computers). Whereas the more frugal people I know mostly purchase new electronics when the old item has truly and utterly died without the possibility of repair. But assuming that will not change in the near future it seems that selling refurbished electronics at cheaper prices as well as improving the manufacturing process to use less toxic materials, could help quite a bit. An example of refurbished electronics I saw in the news the other day here in Denmark is http://www.brugteiphones.dk/ http://www.brugteiphones.dk/ buying up old broken iphones, repairing and selling them, they seem to be growing pretty fast.
- danieldk 12y ago
  The norm where I live seems to be to purchase new computers, smartphones, etc. every 6-24 months (phones more often compared to computers). While a computer can last a decade for most consumers, especially with the long support cycles of Windows and/or Linux' support for low-end hardware, phones are pretty much obsolete in no time: they don't get security updates, apps become unbearable (since their developers have the latest & greatest), etc. Planned obsolescence. This is one of the reasons that I argue that e.g. the EU should intervene. Phone manufactures and/or carriers should at the very least provide security updates for a reasonable period. Another option would be to make unlocked boot loaders mandatory, so that consumers can easily replace firmware.
onion2k 12y ago
The people of the countries that violate agreements, or that don't ratify the agreements in the first place, voting their politicians out of power and replacing them with politicians who believe being a good citizen of the world is more important than making a quick profit or offloading problems on to other countries. If voting doesn't work then bloody revolution could be an option.
vetler 12y ago
Stricter laws on proper recycling?
- seunosewa 12y ago
  Apparently only a fraction of the waste is recyclable, so if it isn't dumped there it may have to be dumped somewhere else...
  - sjtrny 12y ago
    Rubbish. Almost everything is recycleable. The cost of recycling almost everything at the moment is just massively lower than dumping it.
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      You mean higher, not lower?
      - sjtrny 12y ago
        Yes.
    - aidos 12y ago
      I'm going through an extremely frustrating experience at the moment in that I have a washing machine that's just died. It's only 3 years old and just out of warranty - other than the bearings that need replacing, it's in perfect health. Naturally, I order the bearings I need and start taking the machine to bits. Low and behold, the tub, which can traditionally be split and bolted back together again is now sealed so you can't service it. Now I have the choice of buying a whole new tub assembly (including drum and bearings), at £200, or just buying a whole new machine. But really, I have little choice in the situation. A new machine won't cost much more but will come with a 3-5 year warranty. As a consumer, I only have one reasonable choice to make - but it's the one that's totally wasteful.
      - 12y ago
acomjean 12y ago
Government regulation and laws. Really with pollution the incentive in capitalism is to just pollute, and not deal with waste properly. It is cheaper almost always and following regulations if they even exist usually eats into profit. I used to work for an environmental engineering firm that had to do some site clean-ups in a previous career. Companies hate being forced to pay to clean up their messes, its one of the big incentives not to pollute, as that certainly eats into profits. creating less waste is a good goal too (shaving weight from a phone your going to sell millions of saves a lot of resources) or as a consumer buying less means you'll throw away less (swap in an ssd for your hard drive to keep that computer another year..). Computers and phones keep getting better and better (more energy efficient too), so there is a strong motivation to upgrade (although this is less stong then it used to be).
- ptaipale 12y ago
  Yep, government regulation and laws. The question is: which government? Normally one would expect that in the areas were this work is done, the local governments take care of environmental and work safety regulations and laws. But they don't - due to greed, corruption and whatever. So should, for example, OECD countries forbid export of electric waste to non-OECD countries, to enforce proper disposal of hazardous materials and recycling? I don't have very clear answers to this, because there are obvious reasons both ways (do we want to exclude poor countries from the world markets?). But I think it is a good question.
  - DanBC 12y ago
    There are existig laws to prevent e-waste dumping -- most of the e-waste from the EU in Agbogbloshie was illegally exported. http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/new-law-seeks-limit-dumping-wast-news-514282 http://www.euractiv.com/sustainability/new-law-seeks-limit-d...
    - ptaipale 12y ago
      Yes, in addition to laws and regulations, there needs to be enforcement, otherwise they do nothing.
pjc50 12y ago
The EU's WEEE is supposed to be the solution to this. It imposes requirements on manufacturers and distributors to take back discarded products: http://www.valpak.co.uk/compliance-services/weee http://www.valpak.co.uk/compliance-services/weee The actual implementation is a bit more fraught e.g. http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-general-electrical-forum/66826-wholesalers-own-weee-charge.html http://www.electriciansforums.co.uk/electrical-forum-general... (supposed to be free for domestic purposes and therefore "invisible", but not necessarily for commercial). Especially in a context of phasing out the easily disposable incandescent bulbs in favour of CCFL or LED which aren't so safe to landfill. Once the products have been returned they're supposed to be recycled. No doubt some of them end up being shipped to Ghana even though this is not supposed to happen. Ultimately the solution is longer-lasting less obsolete products, but that's "bad for the economy" when the economy is transaction-focused.

sveme 12y ago

Some impressive pictures from Kevin McElvaney: http://www.derkevin.com/Agbogbloshie.html http://www.derkevin.com/Agbogbloshie.html

jpatokal 12y ago
Video too: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSbPjtY2YPg&feature=youtu.be https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSbPjtY2YPg&feature=youtu.be

francoisf 12y ago

This is something I can't get out of my head: as a tech user (and as an IT worker), I am an active part of the e-waste problem. I always find it hard to relate to some tech enthusiasts that often appear to me like compulsive, irresponsible buyers. I can't help but ask myself: can a culture shift within the IT community lead to raise awareness among the larger public?

Infinitesimus 12y ago
When I saw the post on the fp of HN, my first reaction was "hey wait I know that name... ohh..ooohhh". (Disclaimer: Ghanaian here. Currently an SE in the US ) I think a culture shift in the IT community will definitely make the message loud, but the truth is that this dump comes from businesses who deal primarily with the average consumer, not the tech-savvy minority. And until the majority cares, nothing is going to change unfortunately. Every step in that direction helps though, by all means, we as a community need to be much more vocal about this (well, be concerned first of all)
- davedx 12y ago
  "Early adopters" are a much smaller segment of the market, true, but they also buy a ton more stuff than regular people by definition. :)
  - 67726e 12y ago
    Without seeing numbers, I would highly doubt that premise. Sure, the maybe a couple hundred thousand geeks will buy a few more laptops and phones, but the couple hundred million consumers will surely win by volume, no? (Strictly speaking US here)

jpatokal 12y ago

I've seen a fair bit of poverty in my travels around Africa and elsewhere, but I'm still rather astonished by how utterly and totally low-tech and unorganized this is: it's literally just a bunch of people scrabbling about heaps of garbage on an open field, only that garbage has been carted in from the other side of the world! For example, you'd think it would be worth it for somebody to set up some sort of smelter where you could bring your cables to get the plastic melted off, but when labor is essentially free and the competition is Darwinian, it's unlikely any scavenger would pay for such a service when they could just sit around an open flame instead. And for an even more Dantean version of this, Glawegger's Workingman's Death covers a Nigerian slaughterfield in Port Harcourt. (And yes, the footage is pretty damn disturbing.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukSAfBulphU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukSAfBulphU https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workingman%27s_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workingman%27s_Death

zhte415 12y ago
Given the low tech nature, a lot of the 'value' could have already been extracted via any widespread method, and this is the byproduct of already processed recyclables being sold on. I highly recommend the book Junkyard Planet by Adam Minter, who follows the global scrap trade. Link to his site: http://shanghaiscrap.com/books/junkyard-planet/ http://shanghaiscrap.com/books/junkyard-planet/ Link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion-Dollar-Trash/dp/1480592870 http://www.amazon.com/Junkyard-Planet-Travels-Billion-Dollar...
rasz_pl 12y ago
You only see most primitive and dirty last stage. Showing anything before (fixing and reusing whole products) wouldnt be sexy enough. Its like those tent city documentary movies, think Michael Moore.

izietto 12y ago

Africa is the shame of western society

izietto 12y ago
You can downvote me, but that's the point. Western countries go on exploiting Africa for its space and its resources, and then can't handle their inhabitants migrations. A shame, what else.

TeMPOraL 12y ago

Ok, so how can we make cleaning this mess up profitable?

normloman 12y ago
That shouldn't be the first question you ask. Plenty of problems have market-based solutions. But some don't. This is a matter of regulation and law enforcement.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  It's not usually the first question I ask. There is, however, already a subthread discussing legal approach. But since HN has a lot of smart, business-minded people, I thought it would be worth discussing commercial options.
  - thisisandyok 12y ago
    I'm inclined to agree. It's not exactly my cup of tea, but I've always admired businesses that are able to charge one company for removal, then sell those same goods to someone else. My favorite (though fictional) example of this: http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Harry_King http://wiki.lspace.org/mediawiki/Harry_King
gambiting 12y ago
If you make cleaning it up profitable, then it will attract more waste. What you want is to stop sending e-waste to Ghana in the first place.
- TeMPOraL 12y ago
  If they could recycle this waste into something useful and make a business out of it, I think we'd want to send more waste there. It's better to have it recycled in Ghana than have it not recycled at all. Their economy would also be happy.
  - 12y ago

henrykohl4 12y ago

There are homegrown solutions in the pipeline, I worked with a couple of guys on a project there: http://accrareport.com/feature/agbogbloshie-a-local-solution-for-a-global-tragedy/ http://accrareport.com/feature/agbogbloshie-a-local-solution... http://accrareport.com/feature/e-waste-in-ghana-where-death-is-the-price-of-living-another-day/ http://accrareport.com/feature/e-waste-in-ghana-where-death-...

kwiens 12y ago

I've spent some time there and I can share a first-hand perspective. It looks like a dump in the pictures, but it's not. It's an active scrapyard. No material stays in Agbogbloshie for very long. Electronics show up, are mined for raw materials in crude fashion, and then the raw material is sold. Unprofitable material like copper cable jackets are burned. Some of the footage I shot is in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwLUnd_ydI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dMwLUnd_ydI The other thing about Agbogbloshie nobody talks about: encircling the scrapyard is a huge repair yard where people fix everything they possibly can. It's only the stuff that can't get fixed and resold that goes to the urban mine.

cellularmitosis 12y ago

I have a cardboard box with a decade's worth of personal e waste. I see articles like this and wonder if I would better serve the world by simply putting it in the dumpster. It would likely pollute our ground water locally, but perhaps that's better than being burned in Ghana? What do HNers do with their e waste?

WR3A 12y ago

These western descriptions of Agbogloshie are really becoming a farce. It's the scrap dump where African generate cars and old appliances go. It is not the repair hub. There are ZERO sea containers of Western e-junk showing up. NONE. The place handles less per day than the average e-waste processor in Indiana. The World Bank stats show that Accra has 4.5M residents, and the majority of households have had TV and computers for a decade. They buy used working electronics because the average income is under $3K. But it's obscene that environmentalists go to a dump and take pictures of kids and raise money and don't tell the truth about the waste origins and don't share any money with the kids. I'm going back at the end of the month. Just stop it people. (With all due respect, You too, Kyle). Your video says you saw no evidence of repair, it's the scrapyard it isn't where the repair is done and it isn't where the sea containers arrive. And this has all been painstakingly documented in major reports! http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWaste/E-wasteAssessmentGhana.pdf http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWast... http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWaste/EwasteAfrica_Nigeria-Assessment.pdf http://www.basel.int/Portals/4/Basel%20Convention/docs/eWast... And the original source of the statistic that it's the biggest e-waste dump in the world, junking 80%, made it up. Look! http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/05/basel-action-network-explains-80-or.html http://retroworks.blogspot.com/2013/05/basel-action-network-... This is environmental malpractice.

WR3A 12y ago

Four comprehensive studies have found that 85%, 87%, 91%, or 93% is reused. The sea containers go to another part of town, where the geeks and technicians are. Agbogbloshie is mostly managing used scrap (cars, appliances, electronics) generated by the 4.5M inhabitants of Accra. Over half the households in Accra had television in 2003. Links to Ghana specific studies here http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/06/21/231250/uk-man-sentenced-to-16-months-for-exporting-e-waste-despite-91-reuse http://news.slashdot.org/story/14/06/21/231250/uk-man-senten...