E-Waste – Agbogbloshie Market

GHANA ■ The Agbogbloshie Market in Accra is a place where young men and children work by dismantling computers and other e-waste in search of spare parts to sell at the nearby open-air market. Those machines came mostly from countries of the European Union, where legislation prohibits the illegal discharge of that type of waste and are forced to recycle. Many Europeans are therefore donating their old computers to the Third World. As most recipient countries do not have facilities for recycling, these computers end up sooner or later on markets like Agbogbloshie, and are thus dismantled and the recovered pieces are burned to retrieve copper, which gives off noxious fumes. The air, soil and water are therefore heavily polluted by toxic heavy metals like lead, cadmium, mercury, etc.

Source: Courrier International
Photos: Karl Melander