U.S. Electronic Waste Sent to Africa
By Aaron Leung, Grade 10
Curtis Palmer, "e-Waste" January 4, 2007 via Flickr, Creative Commons Attribution.
In Ghana, Africa, rain pours down during damp weather and turns Agbogbloshie into a muddy field. The mud is so thick and strong that it can grasp the shoes of those who set foot on it. (That is, if they actually wear any.) However, this does not stop children of varying ages from running around scrap yards. What they seek is any electronic waste that contains copper. On a lucky day, they can find about $2 worth of copper minerals from abandoned electronics (including computers, television sets, and phones), most of which are electronic waste that we have “recycled”; in other words, much of the e-waste in Agbogbloshie comes from First World countries, such as the United States.
