Some of the electronic waste items that are said to have turned the scrap yard at Agbogbloshie into a “highly dangerous and toxic environment” have been traced to the United Kingdom.

Investigations conducted by The Times of London into the Agbogbloshie dumping site made an emphatic statement that “the dangerous trade in obsolete electronic products is being encouraged in part by Britain”.

In its weekend edition, The Times of London claimed that it had seen computers that had once been used in the offices of the British Ministry of Defence and workers at Agbogbloshie claimed to have seen labels on the back of discarded PCs from several British companies.

“A Ministry of Defence (MoD) spokeswoman said obsolete computers had been sent to its Disposal Services Authority, which passed them on to Sims, one of its IT contractors.

The computer identified in Ghana by its tag number T849 had been “sold to a British company for re-use”.

According to The Times of London, the spokeswoman further stated that the MoD was trying to find out the name of the company, but added, “Where it goes once it’s in their hands is nothing to do with us.”

Electronic-waste is a vast and growing market, put by some estimates at 50 million tonnes a year. Much of it is dumped in Ghana and Nigeria where, without proper regulation or health controls, pieces can be extracted and recycled by unemployed youth.

Agbogbloshie, a sprawling market in Accra, is arguably becoming the world’s fastest-growing e-waste dumping site. Anyone who moves closer to the site, where used computers are recycled into other products by the youth, is hit by an overpowering smell.

A blend of burning rubber and chemicals clogs the nostrils and stings the eyes and hangs at the back of the throat.

In a report released last week, the United Nations said organised crime cartels, already active in drug smuggling in the West African sub-region, were moving into the lucrative e-waste trade and promised to pursue a co-ordinated approach in an attempt to keep it in check.

The Head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Antonio Maria Costa, said, “Organised crime is attacking West Africa because of the intrinsic weaknesses of these countries — the result of poverty, underdevelopment and corruption.”

Experts say all the electronic items contain small but valuable amounts of aluminium, copper, cadmium or other minerals. Many of the devices also contain material that, if handled incorrectly, becomes toxic, including lead at one hundred times above normal background levels.

A popular method used by the children is to melt or burn the plastic coating around a computer or television’s internal wiring — a process that releases dangerous chemicals such as phthalates, which are known to damage sexual reproductive faculties, and cadmium and antimony, which have been found to contain chlorinated dioxins that can cause cancers.

The Times of London quoted Mr Kim Schoppink, toxic campaingner with Greenpeace, as saying,“It is a highly dangerous and toxic environment.

What they don’t want is just discarded and left to seep into the earth and affect the water table and even enter the food chain.” Two nearby rivers, which even six years ago used to boast fish, are now dead.

Containers filled with old equipment from major brands such as Dell, Canon, Philips and Sony arrive at the port in Accra from Germany, Switzerland, Britain and Japan under the false label of “second-hand goods”.

Mike Anane, a local journalist, said criminals were able to dodge the customs authorities by falsifying documents to say that the goods being shipped were working.

“It is illegal to export e-waste under international agreements, but it is not illegal to export old electronics for re-use. This allows unscrupulous traders to exploit the loophole,” he said.

“Working computers, phones and the like can be useful in developing countries, but this is not what is happening. Instead they are creating pollution due to the high levels of toxic chemicals they contain.”

Even in the European Union, which has some of the most stringent controls, an estimated 75 per cent of e-waste is unaccounted for. Most of this, an estimated 8.5 million tonnes a year, is believed to be finding its way to unofficial dumps in West Africa.


Source: Daily Graphic