E-waste being dumped in Africa

The report on Dateline on Sunday 25 September 2011, 8.30pm on SBS ONE, reveals that although it is illegal to ship hazardous waste from Australia to Africa, container loads of discarded and broken televisions and computers are being sent to Ghana, contributing to the country’s growing e-waste problem.

Exporters involved in the illegal trade declare the containers of e-waste as working, second-hand products. But Dateline video journalist Giovana Vitola came across a recent shipment from Sydney while investigating the e-waste problem in Ghana. She found that many of the products were obviously unusable.

In the pile of TVs, a monitor was found with sticker from an Australian manufacturing company. Dateline approached the company for comment and was told that it routinely disposes of e-waste through legitimate recycling channels. In the Ghanan city of Agbogbloshie, unprotected workers, often children, scavenge through thousands of tonnes of e-waste, searching for wire that can be re-sold. In the process, the remaining casings, cables and plastic are burnt and large fires billowing toxic smoke are causing significant health and environmental problems.

“The vegetation is gone, the soil is poisoned, and the river is also dead. It is total devastation as a result of the illegal shipment and dumping of electronic waste,” Mike Anane, a local environmental journalist who has been researching the problem, tells Vitola.

Anane tells Dateline that illegal shipments to Ghana started arriving eight years ago, and an estimated 500 container loads arrive every month. Much of this is sent to the dump yards, while a small fraction can be fixed and sold at the local market.

“These items are generated by these industrialised countries - Holland, America, Canada - and they are supposed to dispose of these things all by themselves. But rather than do that, they put them on ships and send them here,” Anane said.

Geordie Gill, who runs a company in Australia that recycles e-waste legally, is not surprised by the situation in Ghana. He has seen hundreds of TVs piling up at a Sydney charity depot, and tells Dateline he is aware that unscrupulous exporters approach organisations who cannot afford the high cost of recycling e-waste legally within Australia, and offer to buy the dumped electronics.

“I know for a fact that container loads from that charity were sent overseas. We explained what you’re doing is the wrong thing, but it’s been dumped on them and they don’t have the money to recycle it properly,” Gill tells Dateline.

As a result of Dateline’s investigation to be shown on SBS on Sunday night, the Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities (DSEWPAC), with the assistance of Customs and Border Protection, has launched an investigation into exportation of e-waste from Australia to Ghana and is also undertaking a review of the Hazardous Waste (Regulation of Exports and Imports) Act 1989.

Giovana Vitola’s report on e-waste in Ghana and will be available online following the program - www.sbs.com.au/dateline.