สิ่งพิมพ์ - สิงหาคม 5, 2551
As the global market for electronic goods expands, and the lifespan of many of those products gets shorter, there has been a rapid growth in electronic waste (e-waste). The UN estimates that 20-50 million tonnes of e-waste is produced globally every year.
Many electronic products such as laptops and mobile phones
contain hazardous chemicals and materials, and recycling or
disposing of them can pose serious threats to human health and the environment. E-waste often ends up dumped in countries with little or no regulation of its recycling or disposal. Historically this has taken place in Asia, but recently the trade has spread to other regions, particularly West Africa.
Sending old electronic equipment to developing countries is often
hailed as “bridging the digital divide.” But, all too often this simply
means dumping useless equipment on the poor. One estimate
suggests that 25-75% of “second hand goods” imported to Africa
can not be reused.
In April 2008, following evidence that e-waste is being exported, often illegally, to Ghana from the EU and US, Greenpeace conducted the first investigation of workplace contamination from e-waste recycling and disposal in Ghana. The study extends Greenpeace’s global exposé of e-waste, which has previously documented environmental contamination from these practices in China and India.
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Executive summary: In Ghana, Greenpeace experts collected soil and sediment samples from two e-waste recycling sites: the Agbogbloshie scrap market in the capital city, Accra, the main centre for e-waste recycling in the country; and from a scrapyard in the smaller city of Korforidua, thought to be typical of the numerous small-scale e-waste recycling workshops in Ghana.
The samples were analysed at the Greenpeace Research
Laboratories at the University of Exeter, UK. The full results are
published in the Greenpeace Laboratories Technical Note (hereafter referred to as the “Contamination Study”) released in August 2008, in conjunction with this report.
Computers, monitors and TVs are the main e-wastes processed at the scrap yards. At Agbogbloshie, these are manually dismantled at numerous small workshops within the market. Some parts are burned to remove plastics from valuable metals. Materials of no value are dumped along with other waste. Much of the work is carried out by children, some as young as 5, with no protective equipment and using basic tools, or bare hands .
The study found that many samples contained numerous hazardous substances: including very high levels of the toxic metal lead; chemicals such as the phthalates DEHP and DBP, which are known to interfere with sexual reproduction; and chlorinated dioxins known to promote cancer.
Num. pages: 20