When the rains come, this waste will be washed to the sea.

A man crosses a severely polluted river in Agbogbloshi. When the rains come, this waste will be washed to the sea.

The suburb of Agbogbloshi in Ghana’s capital, Accra, has in recent years become a dumping ground for computers and electronic waste from Europe and the US. Hundreds of tons of e-waste end up here every month as Western countries attempt to unload their ever increasing stockpiles of toxic junk. Of the 20 to 50 million tons of electronics discarded each year, 70% will end up in poor nations in West Africa like Ghana, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast. Traders bypass international laws by labeling the equipment as second-hand goods or charity donations, but in reality, as much as 80% of the computers sent to Ghana are broken or obsolete. Their final resting place is Agbogbloshie dump where they are broken apart, mostly by children, to salvage the copper, hard drives, and other components that can be sold. The disposal of electronic goods in the West is a costly affair and must be done in an environmentally responsible manner, but places like Ghana have no such regulations and toxic metals like lead, beryllium, cadmium and mercury are continuously being released, causing untold damage to human health and the environment.