Electronic Waste and the Despicable World of Environmental Racism

Nigeria: Toxic Waste Dump of the Affluent World

Koko, a port town in Nigeria, is a smoking gun of the world's toxic electronic waste industry. This industry, initially by conceit and then by consensus of power, turned this idyllic coastal suburb into a dumpyard saturated with poisonous chemicals. 

As early as 1987, ships carrying toxic e-waste began to arrive in Koko. Years after, a toxic leakage from the shipment kept onshore drew people's attention. Then, the dockworkers started to show signs of burning and had frequent paralytic episodes. Eventually, people began to raise questions. 

Soon, it was public knowledge that two Italian e-waste disposal companies paid an Italian importer stationed in Koko, and he, in turn, paid a local residential plot owner there to get permission to dump e-waste in Koko. 

Koko had enough of corrupt officers who gave the necessary permissions. It also was a port town where cargo inspections were rare occurrences. The journalists who visited Koko found about 3800 tons of toxic waste kept filling in over 2000 drums in this dumping site. 

After much damage was imparted, the turn of events forced the Nigerian government to declare a 500-meter radius of land surrounding this toxic waste dump as unsafe for human entry. This incident gained international media attention, and Italy had to take back the waste a few months later. 

The people of Koko had to fight a legal battle for 21 years to get compensation for the health issues they had to undergo caused by the e-waste dump. Only a tip of the scam had become exposed, but it became invisible again after the Koko issue was settled. This was in no way an end to the act of environmental racism practised by the e-waste disposal companies against Africa and Asia.

Electronic Waste Dumping in Africa and Asia

Many similar incidents, where the developed nations treated the backward countries as their toxic waste dumping grounds, emerged over time. CNN reported that Nigeria was becoming a toxic waste dumping destination for developed nations. 

Greenpeace called it toxic colonialism. The businesses found it cheaper to dump e-waste in Africa than to process it legally in their home countries because that would have cost them safety and taxation commitments. There is also a burgeoning electronic recycling market that thrives on the components of electronic gadgets salvaged from electronic waste. 

Thousands of Africans have become labourers in this e-waste recycling industry, working in hazardous conditions, without any safety measures, breaking down electronic waste and sorting different usable parts for recycling. 

Consumerism and fast-paced technology development render electronic items short-lived in their utility value in the developed world. This leads to a use-and-throw culture of electronic items in affluent societies, and a vast majority in poor countries such as Africa stay the least benefitted from technological advancements.

The Electronic Waste and Digital Divide

The political leadership of less developed countries views the first world’s electronic waste as an income opportunity for unskilled working people. Political kickbacks will also be at play in such decisions. 

Many electronic gadgets have aluminium, gold, copper, nickel, platinum, and silver in them. In African countries, those in the recycling business employ cheap labour available to recover these metals and to amass huge profits. Some authentic estimates by organisations such as Greenpeace show that 80% of Europe’s e-waste is handled in unsafe environments.

Countries like Nigeria, Ghana, China, and India have been the destinations of e-waste recycling. E-waste also enters these countries as donations. Sometimes, old electronic equipment gets shipped to these destinations under the narrative that they will open access to modern technologies for underprivileged people. 

Ironically, slogans sounding charitable and seemingly pushing for a better world were formulated and raised in the disguise of removing e-waste from the developed world’s backyard. They were about the students having computers and villagers having access to information. New York Times, in an article, even mocked the “building bridges” and “bridging the digital divide” slogans behind these e-waste dumps. Sometimes, e-waste is also sold to poor countries as second-hand consumer goods.

Guinea-Bissau, an African country, presented the world with an extreme and disturbing picture of the e-waste situation in 1988. It had accepted a contract to receive $600 million worth of e-waste. Shockingly, the country had a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of one-fourth of this contract amount. 

International and domestic pressure mounted on Guinea-Bissau to not accept this contract as it made to national and international news. Finally, the government of Guinea-Bissau had to nullify the contract agreement. 

The President of Benin, another African nation, argued at the Lome Peace negotiations that his country was planning to import e-waste for the want of people’s survival and employment. For waste disposing and reselling companies such as Nedlog Technology Group Inc., Jelly Wax Group, and SI Ecomar, it is evident that there was no shortage of political backing.

Disposal Costs of Hazardous Waste

An average computer monitor contains 8 pounds of lead, plastic, flame retardants, and cadmium. Electronic waste has polluted the seas and rivers of the importing countries. Earlier, countries like the US had used their e-waste for landfills. 

"Valley of the Drums" in Kentucky was a toxic waste dumping site. Severe contamination of the freshwater bodies surrounding this place made the communities resist these e-waste landfills. With time, the realisation sank in that e-waste was full of toxic materials. This was also the pivotal moment when e-waste-disposing companies began to see Asian and African countries as new dumping sites.

Estimates say that only 2% of e-waste that reaches Nigeria gets re-used. The recycling companies claim that every part of the e-waste is re-used in the destination countries. The leachate contamination of freshwater bodies and agricultural lands from e-waste storage sites is a common problem these recycling destinations face. 

E-Waste and Basel Convention

In 1989, the UN-led Basel Convention was proclaimed to control the illegal circulation and processing of e-waste. It was a binding rule for all nations in 1992. The Convention covered e-waste transportation, recovery, and recycling. 

Provisions in the Basel Convention necessitate that e-waste is disposed of in an environmentally safe manner. There have to be proper contracts and agreements in place as delineated by the convention. Also, the exporting country should inform and get the permission of the importing country. Basel Convention gives developing countries differential treatment and allows them to prevent the e-waste from entering their country. Yet, the treaty falls short in many aspects. It does not completely ban hazardous e-waste of the developed countries from entering the less developed countries. This was a loophole wide enough for illegal transport, export, and import of electronic waste to continue. The convention also lacks systems to ensure accountability and monitoring. Additionally, developed countries continue to have laws that do not ban the export of electronic waste. Overall, the illegal practices flourish, and business continues as usual.

Health Issues of Electronic Waste

Heavy metals like Lead, Cadmium, and Mercury, when leached into the surroundings from e-waste dumps, cause many health issues. Lead affects the brain, kidneys, and endocrine system. Cadmium affects the liver and kidneys. Mercury accumulates in the food chain and moves from plants to animals and from them to humans. This chemical is found to cause serious brain damage. There is also the presence of Polyvinyl Chlorides in huge quantities in e-waste. These cause cancer when burned and inhaled. Often, e-waste is burned or heated to recover the valuable metals in them. Nitrates from the e-waste have also polluted potable water across Nigeria.

The Nightmare Revisits Koko

In 2017, electronic waste shipments from an international oil company began to set anchor in Koko’s seashore. The company explained to the media that it was not toxic waste but sludge. They also justified their action by saying they were using Koko as a recycling location. The lab tests ordered by the government also indicated that the waste was not toxic.

However, after 2017, news from Koko regarding waste dumping and ‘recycling’ almost stopped. Before the 1980s, Koko was mainly a farming community, and the community members were peasants, fishermen, and small traders. A majority of them lost their traditional livelihood to e-waste dumping.

Agbogbloshie: Ghana’s Sodom

Agbogbloshie is a place in Accra, the capital of Ghana, in Africa. It is the world’s largest e-waste recycling dump. About 80,000 people live in the slums close to this dump. They live off recovering and selling copper and other metals from the e-waste. The place has acquired another name, Sodom, if one remembers, the city destroyed by God’s wrath, as narrated in the Bible.

Open burning to extract valuable metals is a common practice here. In Agbogbloshie, the 20-acre expanse of the waste dump, heaps of waste and fires burning constantly, the scrap workers covered in soot and dust, and the suffocating and ever-present smoke will make a visitor experience hell on earth. The soil of Agbogbloshie is already heavily contaminated with lead. The dioxin levels in the atmosphere are 220 times higher than what is estimated as safe for human inhalation.

The recycling industry nowadays argues that 80 per cent of the e-waste processed in this place comes from West Africa and Ghana and not from the Western world. This is unlikely because Africa is far behind the developed world in manufacturing and using electronic products. The 250000 tons of e-waste that reaches Agbogbloshie every year cannot be waste generated by this small developing country. Studies have shown that the workers of Agbogbloshie do not have the financial resources to use safer and more environment-friendly recovery technologies. Passing the buck has become the new norm in the world debate on electronic waste.

Sea Pirates and E-Waste

Pirate activity in the Somalian seas is directly attributed to the loss of livelihood of Somalian fishermen caused by e-waste contamination of their coastal seas. Ahmedou Ould-Sbdallah, the UN envoy to Somalia, has publicly stated that Somalian cost had become a nuclear and e-waste dump for the Western countries since Somalia started witnessing political instability. The fight of the fishermen to stop the contamination of their ocean wealth evolved gradually into actions of sea piracy. The Somalian Delta is already polluted with the notorious oil spills of foreign oil companies stationed there.

E-Waste Disposing Industry and Its Long-Term Impacts

According to estimates made in 2016, the e-waste-disposing companies of the world process 44.7 million metric tons of toxic waste every year. The entire African experience of e-waste dumping is like a social prism. It refracts racism and class dominance into a spectrum of social impacts- loss of livelihood, exploitation of labour, the decline in community health, and violent responses to the loss of inheritance by people who lost all their natural wealth.

References

Status of e-waste Control in Nigeria, Presentation at the workshop on e-waste in West Africa, Accra, Ghana. 2009.

In the 1980s, Italy Paid a Nigerian Town $100 a month to store toxic waste- and it’s happening again, Stephanie Buck, Timeline.

Toxic Exports: The Transfer of Hazardous Waste from Rich to Poor Countries,2001.

Cleaning up Toxic IT equipment, E-week, Vol. 23.

Premier Farnell targets unregulated e-waste recycling in developing countries, edn.com.

This is what is likely to live in the world’s largest e-waste dumpsite, Sabeena Wahid, 2020.

The Global Environment and International Law, 2003.

Environmental Racism: Our Impact Overseas, Sea Witch Botanicals, 2021.

Challenges to Enforcement of Criminal Liability for Environmental Damage in

E-Waste: Environmental and Health Hazards, 2004. www.iowadrn.gov.

Undercover operation exposes illegal dumping of e-waste in Nigeria, Greenpeace, 2009.

High-tech Trash: Digital Devices, Hidden Toxics, and Human Health.

Iowa Department of Natural Resources, E-Waste: Environmental and Health Hazards.