Rubbish Dump 2.0


  • Photographer
    Andrew McConnell
  • Prize
    Honorable Mention
  • Company/Studios
    Panos Pictures
  • Date of Photograph
    2009

The suburb of Agbogbloshie 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 this e-waste end up here every month as countries in the developed world 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, and in the EU alone 6.6 million tons of e-waste are unaccounted for every year. Increasingly this e-waste is finding it's way to West Africa and countries like Ghana, Nigeria and Ivory Coast. Traders bypass international laws by labelling 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 on.

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