past work: ghana: e waste

Shipping containers full of unusable electronics (“e-waste”) arrive in Ghana regularly where they end up in dump sites like the one in Agbogbloshie market, a densely populated area of the country’s capital, Accra. In the market, they are dismantled, sold for parts and then broken down further by young boys who work in the sprawling dump site looking for possible sources of copper or aluminum, most likely found in cables and motors. In order to retrieve these metals, the plastic casing is burned off emitting high levels of toxins in the plums of black smoke that fill the air. 

A Greenpeace science team visited Ghana earlier this year and found extremely high levels of lead as well as other toxins that could affect a child’s reproductive and brain development. But these toxins are not a major concern for the unprotected children who work the site. They sell the valuable metals to traders in order to raise money for school fees or to help support their families, a more immediate worry.