Archives for February 2015
JOHN VIDAL: Millions of mobile phones, laptops, tablets, toys, digital cameras and other electronic devices bought this Christmas are destined to create a flood of dangerous “e-waste” that is being dumped illegally in developing countries, the UN has w …
THE ABC OF E-WASTE Published: February 25, 2015
SHAUN SWINGLER: Ours is an age of obsolescence. Computers, cellphones and televisions seen as cutting-edge today will be, in a very short time, out of date and thrown away as trash. People generate about 40m tons of digital detritus every year and this …
WASTE DUMPERS TURNING TO AFRICA Published: February 25, 2015
JAMES BROOKE: In Koko in this African delta port, where children run barefoot through oil palm plantations and men pilot dugout canoes through mangrove swamps, the arrival of a ship from Europe has often meant disruption. Before the Arrival of Toxic La …
A DEATH SHIP CALLED PROBO KOALA Published: February 25, 2015
SEBASTIAN KNAUER, THILO THIELKE AND GERALD TRAUFETTER: Europe wouldn’t take the ship’s stinking, poisonous cargo. So it sailed to Africa and dumped the toxic mess into an Ivory Coast lagoon. This is just the most recent example of western nations using …
WHEN WEEE REGULATIONS GO WRONG! Published: February 25, 2015
MARGARET BATES: The disposal of computers and other electronic and electrical goods, e-waste, is a growing global problem. In 2011, the world threw away 41.5m tons of electrical equipmentand this is expected to rise to 93.5m tons by 2016. This is a con …
NO COUNTRY FOR BOYS Published: February 25, 2015
YEPOKA YEEBO: Agbogbloshie is a vast, scorched field, right in the middle of Accra, Ghana, dotted with rusting hulks and heaps of scrap. Hundreds of people work here in what looks like hell: smashing, burning, hawking, eating, and joking. This is the p …