More on Old Fadama e-waste

I previously mentioned that the Old Fadama slum borders one of the 10 most polluted waterways and stated that it includes a lot of electronic wastes from first world computers and t.v.’s.  I then got an email asking how do all the electronics get dumped there.  I have been asking around and gotten some piecemeal information that I have put together as follows.   Many first world people and businesses donate their old computer equipment, t.v.’s and other electronics to avoid the necessity and cost of otherwise properly disposing of their e-waste.  While donations are suppose to be in good working order, a large amount is not.  Containers of donated goods are shipped to Ghana and my guess is that the good working items are then sold second hand.   As for the many useless, outdated or broken items, they are sent to the market that abuts Old Fadama.  From there they scatter about to shops where they are either repaired or taken apart for scrap.  This often includes burning the plastic parts to extract the metal inside, such as copper, cadmium and lead (all poisonous).  What’s left over, or cannot be used, is then dumped in the lagoon.  It seems that one way to stop the problem is to have the donation services to be far more selective in what gets shipped and not be used as a first world dumping service for people to lazy to follow the rules of getting rid of e-waste,   People need to learn that donating broken electronics is nothing more than illegal dumping of e-waste.

I do not have any personal photos of the lagoon, but below are some copied from google images.  But before I put images of garbage I feel it is important that you know that Old Fadama is not nearly as sad as it looks in the images you find on google.  When you walk through the slum, like I did this morning, you see and hear so much activity and you feel the spirit of life.

If Old Fadama was a regular village, we would think it was the most amazing village, because there is so much street life, people talking to each other everywhere, people sitting in groups to eat, gossip or braid hair.  There are lots of laughing children.  There are shops galore that sell everything, and people doing all sorts of labor out in the open, sewing, preparing food, doing hair, working on engines, and so on.  

Now for the pictures:

The first picture is the lagoon, and must have been taken during the dry season.  In the rainy season it must fill up (now it is dry).  By the way, the lagoon drains straight to the ocean.

I'm pretty sure the second picture was taken from the bridge that leads to the market outside the slum.  This is downstream from the lagoon and it's how it looks when I cross the bridge.

The third picture shows how wires are burned to remove the plastic to get at the cooper inside.  I have not seen this done, but I do see shops full of big old fat t.v.'s (as opposed to the flat screens that replaced them) and I do see the smoke of fires that are likely full of poisonous chemicals wherever it the wind takes it.