Old habits die hard in Agbogbloshie

For over 10 years, we used the area of Agbogbloshie on the edge of the Ghanaian capital city of Accra as a case study.

There was a video on Vimeo called e-Wasteland. It is still available to view. It has no narration, but some text captions and the sounds of the activity in this area. It was made by David Fedele in 2012 - which was when we started using it. You will possibly need to login (a free account can be created) to view it.

I thought that the activity had ended due to new methods and efforts to educate the workforce into the risks they were taking - particuarly the accumulation of mercury and other toxic heavy metals into their bloodstreams which shortened their life expectancy.

This article from this weekend suggests that actually the practice is still taking place, so we will perhaps revisit the place, and see what we can see - the area of burning used to be very visible on Google Earth.

Do as Hypnocat says...

...and recycle your electricals...

Geography of Stuff - e-Waste

Say miaow to Hypnocat...

A piece in the BBC News caught my eye today - always working even over half term of course. Geography never stops after all.

It talked about giving electronic items a repairability rating.

The article also talked about the WEEE directive which we cover when we do our unit on the Geography of Stuff in Year 8 in the Lent Term.

Here's a graphic from the piece looking at what electrical items we throw away the most.

Source: Southampton University - copyright BBC News.

The article uses this graphic from Southampton University.

Last year, the EU adopted Right to Repair standards, which mean that from 2021 firms will have to make appliances longer-lasting and supply spare parts for machines for up to 10 years.

The UK government has pledged to "match and even exceed EU eco-product regulations" in the post-Brexit era. 

That makes me laugh frankly, when you read the UN report on WEEE and who produces the most.

The article introduced me to Material Focus.

In the UK, the WEEE sector body, Material Focus – formerly the WEEE Fund with funds via the compliance fee part of the UK’s WEEE system, has also carried out recent research. It claimed that the UK economy could save £370 million if all the old small electricals that are “either thrown away or hoarded” were recycled.

They are behind a campaign to Recycle your Electricals, which uses Hypnocat...

This makes the point that there are hundreds of millions of pounds worth of unused electrical items sitting in sheds, garages, attics and under sink cupboards in the kitchens of the UK. The manufacture of these involves the use of raw materials which are in limited supply.

Agbogbloshie: e-wasteland

Agbogbloshie is a suburb of the city of Accra on the Atlantic coast of Ghana in West Africa.

It is a well known example of a community which receives illegal shipments of e-waste, which provides employment for young men, often migrants from the north of Ghana. Cables are burned to melt the plastic revealing the copper wire.


Attempts are being made to stop the burning.

Pure Earth blog has more details on this.

In the most recent Geographical Journal from the RGS-IBG, there was an article on the places in the world where this activity takes place - it is not only Ghana, and in most cases there is a hierarchy of jobs which sustains other employment.

Source of image: https://www.voanews.com/a/wire-strippers-bring-some-relief-from-toxic-smokein-ghana/2498347.html 

Welcome to Daisy - a replacement for LIAM

We've been looking at E-Waste, and the role of Agbobloshie....
Previously there was Liam



Here's a story from earlier this week about Daisy, which can dismantle 200 iPhones an hour.
Our question was, what happens to Liam now? Do we need some robots to dismantle him?



Image: Apple

e-Waste

Third video from Matt Podbury - this is excellent on e-Waste in Agbogbloshie




The Electronic Afterlife from Gizmogul on Vimeo.


Interesting discussions on the relationship between this and the people in Ghana. This film publicises a company that recycles electronic gadgets...