This is a true story and perhaps one of the most tragic I’ve ever read. I have found an investigation article about illegal e-waste trade with the poor nations of Africa. The country in discussion here is Ghana. The reporters have found an e-waste dump with computers originally used by British National Health System (NHS).
The reportage continues to describe the entire process of poisoning the environment. Near the capital Accra, filthy children work in a highly toxic environment to extract metallic parts from the dumped computers. There were the air is poisoned with burning lead and plastics is the final resting place for old PCs, TV sets or mobile phones. Nobody cares.
In the same place, where you can barely take a breath, skinny children collect metals like copper and lead. The worst thing to do is to burn the computer parts. The “combustion releases toxic metals - lead, beryllium, cadmium, mercury - into the atmosphere. Likewise, burning creates some of the most carcinogenic and toxic substances known, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, dioxins and furans.”
As shameful as it is, the harm comes from the developed countries. We are the danger. The reporters discovered stickers indicating the computers were the property of Thames Gateway NHS Trust. They even found confidential data stored on some hard disks.
Although the Great Britain and Ghana have signed the Basel Convention which supposes to combat the hazardous waste dumping, the crime against the environment and people continues. Help us spread this news and make people aware of the e-waste danger.
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