How Europe’s Discarded Computers Are Poisoning Africa’s Kids

Twenty years ago, the international community drew up the Basel Convention in order to prevent developed nations from dumping their computer scraps in the developing world. Yet, the last two decades have shown that enforcing such a treaty is difficult. Some countries, such as the US, still haven't ratified the treaty; meanwhile, those who have, such as Germany, still struggle to abide by it. After all, it is hard to tell if a computer simply needs repair (making it legal to export) or must be scrapped. Thus, despite Germany's relatively harsh anti-dumping legal framework, the practice continues because it costs less than half of disposing a computer domestically. A new governmental study estimates 100,000 tons of its electronic waste is exported to the developing world annually. The effects are evident in slums like Accra's “Sodom and Gomorrah,” where impoverished youths dig through the scraps in the hopes of finding enough valuable pieces to eek out a living. The burning heaps of metals and plastics, though, pose immediate and chronic health threats to these youths. Yet, because governments like that of Ghana are stretched for resources and have no recycling system in place, they fail to act once these scrapped computers enter their borders. Because the shipping of these damaged and used computers remains unregulated by either exporting or importing country, the result is a globalized, multimillion dollar business that benefits those at the top of the value chain at the expense of the poor who both do the job of disposing computers and pay the price for their disposal in health effects. – YaleGlobal