Inside Agbogbloshie electronic waste dump in Ghana

In Agbogbloshie, Ghana, e-waste blights the environment. Located in the country’s capital, Accra, it was once one of the world’s largest e-waste dumpsites, where every year up to 10,000 workers would process around 15,000 tons of e-waste – discarded smartphones, laptops, televisions, and all sorts of other electronics.

The Agbogbloshie dump was dismantled by local authorities in 2021, but the area is still a hotspot for e-waste. Search for an Agbogbloshie before-and-after shot and it might show areas of cleared land, but clouds of toxic smoke still billow from the piles of tech, so Back Market went to visit the site to discover how it’s operating today.

What happens to the e-waste at Agbogbloshie?

E-waste arrives at Agbogbloshie from both local neighborhoods and a port around 20 miles away, and what happens to it depends on its condition and value. Some is repaired to be reused, some is stripped for parts, and some is burned to extract the valuable metals inside.

It's hazardous work. When it’s manually dismantled, chipped, heated, melted, and burned, e-waste can release up to 1,000 different chemicals into the environment, according to the World Health Organization, including dangerous heavy metals like lead. Agbogbloshie locals report breathing problems, headaches, and burns caused by their recycling work, and studies have shown that they have elevated levels of hazardous elements in their bodies. “This smoke is very sickness,” said one recycling worker Back Market spoke to.

Why undertake such dangerous work? It’s not straightforward. Agbogbloshie sits on the edge of the Old Fadama settlement where many live in poverty, so e-waste represents a crucial source of income. “We’re here to watch out for our family, that’s why we’re here,” Komla Menu Dvedve told us. Some recyclers are also economic migrants who do the work to support family elsewhere or to save for a better future. Safer methods of separation are simply far more expensive and inaccessible.

It’s also the case that the countries with the most capacity to process e-waste safely send it to those with the least – so if workers at Agbogbloshie, and others like it, don’t deal with it, who will? “There's a blame game toward what's happening in places like Ghana, without realizing that the cause of all of this is the way we mismanage our own electronic waste in the West,” says Ugo Vallauri, co-founder and co-director of The Restart Project, which campaigns for policy change across the U.K. and Europe and aims to make repair accessible and affordable to everyone globally.

A global problem

Agbogbloshie is an extreme symptom of a global problem. The latest Global E-Waste Monitor, which tracks e-waste around the world, states that the world generated 62 billion kilograms of e-waste in 2022, and it’s rising by an average of 2.3 billion kilograms a year. Just 22% of those 62 billion kilograms was properly collected and recycled. Of the other 78%, a huge 18 billion kilograms was estimated to be handled in low- and lower-middle-income countries with no developed e-waste management infrastructure, mostly by the informal sector – i.e., places like Agbogbloshie.

There is serious inequity at play. As a continent, Africa only generates 5.5 pounds of e-waste per person on average, compared to 39 pounds per person in Europe. But the biggest polluters take an ‘out of sight, out of mind’ approach to their waste, and it finds its way to other countries, both legally and illegally, to make room for yet more new stuff.

“We have made the mistake of not giving sufficient value to things that have already been manufactured,” says Vallauri. Almost 50% of the products The Restart Project tested over the course of a week at a recycling center in London were still functioning, he says. But it’s not isolated to London; consumers everywhere are sending perfectly good tech to be recycled when it could still be used for years to come.

Why? According to Vallauri, it’s a mixture of barriers established by the manufacturers that prevent consumers from repairing a product or extending its lifespan and “marketing obsolescence” – being bombarded with advertising that makes us want to constantly upgrade.

“Many of the materials that are in electronic items are absolutely crucial for the healthcare sector. So, by managing our waste in a way that's not optimal, we are losing those resources.”

What’s the solution?

“There's not going to be one single solution for this,” says Izzi Monk, environmental policy advisor at the Royal Society of Chemistry. It will take lots in tandem, and one is rethinking how products are designed. “Design for disassembly is really important. So that could mean disassembly for repair, but also for recycling,” says Monk. That can go right back to which chemicals and materials are used and even how they are combined, she says, because the more materials in a product, the more difficult it is to recycle. It can also include common-sense steps such as using screws instead of glues so products are easier to get into for repair.

The Restart Project has campaigned for the Right to Repair, and as a result, some European countries now require tech companies to provide spare parts and repair manuals – a huge win that should mean tech staying in use for longer and fewer products being exported – but it only covers a tiny proportion of products. However, it’s just the start; the Right to Repair movement extends to the U.S., Australia, India, and beyond.

Both Monk and Vallauri say there’s a lack of repair infrastructure and the skills needed to carry out repairs in the countries that do most of the exporting, particularly those in the Global North. “We lost this repair ‘muscle’ because we've increasingly had access to vast amounts of products that were simply too cheap,” says Vallauri.

Here, we should turn back to Agbogbloshie because while, yes, there are many issues around safety and access to proper infrastructure that need to be addressed, it is a shining example of a circular economy. Products are kept in use for years through repair and refurbishment while materials are reused and recycled, avoiding reliance on virgin resources. The rest of the world would do well to follow suit. “Many of the materials that are in electronic items are absolutely crucial for things like the healthcare sector or wind turbines. So, by managing our waste in a way that's not optimal, we are losing those resources,” says Monk.

Finding the way forward

To stop e-waste from further growing out of control, we need a multi-pronged approach. It will include governments around the world getting tough on our right to repair, tech companies designing with the end of life in mind, all countries doing more recycling locally, and consumers everywhere campaigning for and making use of repair services and keeping products for longer. “There’s a local, national, and global aspect to the circular economy,” says Monk. We all play our part. So, next time you’re tempted by a brand-new phone, think twice.