The most toxic place on earth - Agbogbloshie

gaana odd bug blushy some call it the most poisonous spot on our planet final destination for many electrical goods disposed legally or illegally a multitude of people work here every day surrounded by toxic fumes if you take therefore most toxic substances lead arsenic mercury cadmium this are all found I decide and the levels are just too high for even human beings to live around aqua plushies burning inferno embodies both hell and survival from many local residents if the fire cuts the swamp I would say I don't make yourself I will do like that all about way to commode you go left fresh the question is why are so many electronic goods imported country we cannot manufacture even anything we import everything and that's why the story begins at our own doorstep where the average Western citizen purchases 20 kilograms of new electronic goods every year he throws away just as much 40% of the e-waste gets lost on the way to official waste and recycling hubs raw materials at raided worldwide it goes up and down and is somewhat speculative in order to profit from this a garbage mafia has been established 90 percent of African electric waste arrives from Europe and the United States by dubious roads this documentary reveals those in the shadows and follows the smugglers roads from Europe to Africa in the last container I open there were over 40 unannounced refrigerators destination Ghana for illegal waste disposal it's a story of hope in a place with no hope a story that changes everything akbah blushy forecourt to hell West Africa Ghana 25 million people from various ethnic groups live in the West African state compared to neighboring countries Ghana is relatively wealthy and a growing number of its residents can afford imported goods from Europe it's estimated that annually 1.5 million tons of electronic appliances are illegally imported from the EU but what happens to these Goods once they are here to find that out we've equipped a defective fridge with a tracking device which leads us from a European port directly to ghana by container ship the deepwater port of tama lies 30 kilometers north of the capital Accra according to our tracking device our faulty fridge from Europe arrived via the usual smuggling routes in Africa declared at customs as valueless goods mostly sanguinis want to find out how waste even arrives here obviously non-functional devices even though that's not allowed the laws state that only functional devices may be exported [Music] Timah harbour is a central transition point for imports and exports many large European shipping companies regularly call at this port sailings to tama also start in hamburg harbor where we located our fridge the last time the whole harbor is a restricted area filming and photography are strictly forbidden here apparently journalists are not welcome in spite of official requests months in advance we do not get permission to film not even on-site a couple of kilometers from the restricted area we encounter some truck drivers waiting for their cargo we asked them if they also transport fridges from Europe [Music] sometimes from from you're gonna to Burkina Nizam Oliver the Kareena boosts a Muslim most of the terra cotta container container and the one dealer on pallets TV ion and these kind of home gadgets the abundant food the homies Phrygia bonded but is the ban actually enforced a truck driver who regularly receives goods from container ships arriving from Europe and the USA passes a mobile phone video with delicate information on to us the film shots on-site show that old cars and car parts are imported but according to the Basel convention importing scrap ready vehicles is illegal just like fridges old cars should be confiscated or destroyed upon arrival intima apparently there are ways to bypass these import regulations [Music] you see the government is trying to discourage people from bringing all fridges from Europe the port of entrance here when you want to clear their gross they block them right from here it's not only the fridges alone we also discourage a lot a couple of them if cars are over ten years old we classify them as over age and they block them otherwise you pay double duty but you cannot stop everything and time sometimes some people take bribes and they're like we don't have any proof of corruption but shortly afterwards we again receive a signal from our fridge and follow it it leads to the busy city of Accra apparently our defective fridge has passed pork custom controls without problems our tracking device reacts to movement only when it's being reloaded or moving jerkily we are informed about the current whereabouts of our prepared fridge the last signal came a few hours ago we're hoping that we find the fridge there hopefully it'll become apparent soon let's open any but no ever as we've been stuck in a traffic jam for over an hour now we're not moving it so look our driver Joseph is an environmental activist and has a clear idea where we will find our fridge while following the GPS signal we're passing the La Paz district of the city left and right from the Main Street fridges washing machines and freezers are offered for sale a giant second-hand market for used goods from Europe a waste expert Joseph C Courtney is working on an environmental study he wants to find out how many of these used appliances are brought into the country as electronic waste from Europe on container ships and which part of them are actual used goods how do you actually get these fridges they are imported and the devices are always delivered to us we are shipping containers things though out of 35 5 don't work in what way don't they work well sometimes they have run out of cooling fluid if this is the case we can receive that however some have a broken motor though and then we have to get rid of them we can repair that the dealer is not allowed to test the goods before purchase he has to take what is offered to him sold as seen there's much talk in town about the plans of the government the impending import ban on used fridges the Ghanaians are becoming aware of the rapid growth of toxic mountains of waste but many dealers feel their means of existence is under threat we cannot manufacture even we import everything so we are we are the individuals who are trying to help blow this nation for instance somebody may be at the remote area he cannot purchase a brand new television for now as you know the the television there the boss one is over now it's LED LCDs and other two that is coming and if you compare one price from Europe to Africa yet you cannot afford to pay an import ban on its own will not solve the waste problems because new products also have a limited lifespan to get a grip on Ghana's waste problems waste handling has to change radically it's assumed that 1.5 million tons of illegally imported electronic goods include 400 tons of highly toxic electronic waste around 5% of the total volume we receive a final GPS signal from our fridge final destination at Bob low she upon arrival we almost get the shock of our lives we find our defective fridge from Germany here the story starts three months earlier in Hamburg our prepared fridge starts it's 7700 kilometer journey we return to Europe with 617 kilos of waste per capita Germany is the number one front runner 136 kilograms over the European average at the same time Germans are seen as world champions and waste disposal and role models for recycling almost 15% of our waste results from private households it disappears almost unnoticed as an army of garbage men daily ensures its removal 900 of them in Hamburg alone ok her shift will usually load somewhere between 15 and 20 tons of pure domestic waste thanks to recycling general rubbish is getting less and less and organic bins are really on the rise anyway by now citizens ensure that there's only organic waste in them it's been well received but household waste only constitutes 15 percent of the total volume the majority is industrial and commercial waste the car is Germany's most popular consumer product every year 3.2 million new cars are registered in the country almost as many as are discarded the little notes left on our windshield in the morning promising the very best price for scrap ready cars almost all of us know them but how do these seemingly interesting offers come about and where do the cars really end up and why are more and more car dealers specializing in buying up used cars ready for the scrap heap reporter Mathieu conducts an experiment we're filming with a hidden camera none of the dealers approached wanted to speak to us officially after a short inspection the first price negotiations begin in this country in sunset abou I'd take it as is for 350 yep not take it 350 yep it's rusted all over everywhere rust I'll take it for export like I said has seen no guarantee I'll export it the offer does not convince us according to the dealer we have the wrong car Japanese brands would be in much higher demand fetching up to 1000 euros even in bad condition the average European buys 20 kilos worth of electrical goods per year at the same time throwing away about the same amount only half of the discarded old equipment ends up in local recycling centers the rest disappears in unknown ways electronic waste mostly finds its way to Africa by container ship although electronic waste disposal is subject to strict regulations Bhagawan Dodgson unelect in germany we have an electoral law which binds manufacturers to take their devices back similar to our recycling system for casing where the manufacturers collect the packaging the borrower's are legally required to set up collection points and one of these is for example the recycling plant it's here that all the waste materials are collected sorted and shipped to the manufacturers and they reuse it then all as part of the returned skiers hot number systems only 50% of German electronic waste is recycled and reused in the country itself more and more often shady gangs of scrap salvagers collect the electronic waste before it can enter the recycling centers we would like to know what these dubious salvagers really plan to do with this electronic waste that's why we're equipping an old fridge with a powerful tracking device to ensure the fridge is declared as electrical waste we cut the connection cables a marking will help us to clearly identify the defective fridge later the export would be legal if the fridge were repaired we leave the site through the rear gate and drive with a neutral car to the entrance of the recycling center hidden cameras record the events according to the Basel convention defective goods are not allowed for export are you gonna fix it yes going to sub you of Serbia ok Germany and Serbia have signed the international environmental agreement an event afforded reciting whose one of the things we don't like to see is when customers pick up electronic goods anything from a washing machine to a refrigerator or television from the curve in front of the recycling centers before we get the chance to dispose of them no one guarantees in this case of fully law-abiding disposals it says conform therefore via thongsook affiliate we want to know where our defective fridge will end up the tracking device leads us to an industrial area near the port of Hamburg here as far as the eye can see fridges washing machines and freezers are offered for sale but are we dealing with electric waste or a huge second-hand market in used electrical equipment we pretend that we would like to buy a fridge and film the conversation with a hidden camera you thought that I thought that devices would be operational and for sale for know the don't work they're all broken and I understand and where are they going to Africa to Africa yeah okay exporting defective fridges to Africa is strictly forbidden we would like to know why the export ban is circumvented when the camera team reveals itself the situation escalates are you with the police no a journalist get rid of the camera will I break everything well we just want to get rid of that camera a lot better two pieces nobody we just want to report about the fridges and what happens with them this is a public road we're allowed to shoot here the harsh reaction to our appearance shows that the dealers know very well that they're making themselves liable to prosecution when exporting electrical waste out of precaution the camera team withdraws even our leftover waste is worth a lot of money from 2005 waste is no longer used for landfill in this country but thermally recycled nationwide there are 31 waste incineration plants on an annual basis they destroy almost 46 million tons of waste Hamburg city also covers a major part of its energy demand through residential waste the incinerators burn around 21 tons of waste an hour to keep the energy production going the vannacutt understand them a lion's share of the warmth is delivered to Hamburg's district heating system around 700 thousand megawatt hour in some of the base load is definitely supplied from the waste incineration plant in Hamburg our combustion temperature is on average a thousand degrees Celsius and the combustion chamber and we need to maintain at least 800 degrees to destroy especially dioxins non toxic and stuff I also find your scene it's s to invented the underground the waste-to-energy plant runs 24 hours a day by optimizing the combustion the plants control room ensures that there is no development of smoke gas nor of cancer-causing dioxins at the end of the year what remains is almost 50,000 tons of slag and around 8,000 tons of ashes the dust like furnace ashes are driven into Asylum containing high amounts of dioxins and heavy metals which is then transported by silo truck and deposited underground in salt mines the slag is reusable and is used in road works as a bearing layer under the concrete but it's not only household waste that harbors unexpected riches almost always to be come across on a daily basis contains valuable resources this also applies to old electric equipment one of germany's biggest electric waste recycling companies is situated in lush dot nirmaan I'm looking at the huge mountains of one's expensive electronic goods that soon becomes obvious that this waste is particularly valuable metallic noise hairston what if you want to produce new metals these days for example a ton of Steel then you need about 200 tons of iron ore this ore must be gained from the ground but if you give us 7 tons of washing machines we can also make you a ton of Steel the more sought-after the raw materials the more money can be made from them but not all used electrical goods are profitable hi product numbers and environmental standards in Germany make illegal waste export abroad attractive like wouldn't volume feel as the reason why used electronics are exported into developing countries is very simple it's a matter of cost let's take for example a television half of it is glass which must be disposed of as it contains light the dismantling and disposal costs are actually bigger than any potential profit now in a country where these costs are minor or non-existent where the glass is just thrown into any old hole in the ground then yours saving a lot of money - next I love lift phenomena this difference between the prices in Europe and the profit made in developing countries is so big that the transport is easily paid for the profitable side of electronic waste recycling mobile phones and circuit boards in particular contain the most valuable resources one tonne of mobile phone waste can contain up to two point five kilograms of silver and 250 grams of gold end is in the flights tomorrow via filament Allah Mobile is packed tightly with valuable metals we have golden pins on the circuit board for example under the keys and the rest of the components also contain valuable metals such as tantalum by the palladium pashto prevent raw materials are traded worldwide Pacific exchange markets exist for example the London Metal Exchange it's just like a stock market it goes up and down and is somewhat speculative this vitalizes they are speculative the electronic industry alone requires around 300 tons of gold a year for its production it's clear both the legal and illegal trade and scrap are booming this affects recyclers of cars that are not allowed to be exported one of germany's largest car recyclers is near hamburg it's not only illegal gangs that make dealers lives difficult the battle for sought-after car scrap is becoming harder and harder demand from abroad makes it difficult for entrepreneurs annual turnovers decline contesting that applies even yze mark isn't the reason why the exporters can offer better prices than us is because they don't have the same costs as we do we foster the correct disposal of these vehicles this means always following strict regulations unlike the exporters an exporter can buy a car for one to two hundred euros and ship it so these are his only costs in Germany close to one and a half million vehicles are disposed yearly and out of these one and a half million about 500,000 end up at registered German plants at least according to certificates of destruction which are mandatory when scrapping a car so that's a considerable number of cars with unknown feints totals what if I buy Pumbaa Cantus the dealer makes most of his profit from selling spare parts the old cars may only be stripped down after all environmentally dangerous components have been removed catalysts that contain the precious metal platinum belong to the most valuable parts in the end the stripped body works are sold to shredding companies and if a call from Allah a lot happens by mu not every one and a half to two months we sell approximately four and a half thousand tons to the wrecking yard owner after the scrap yard worker has picked up the vehicle it's crushed to bits then the individual materials are separated mean when Anna's about yet is there a steel waste cast iron and plastic containing components so these are all separated and then the wrecking yard owner sells the raw materials on to manufacturers and fob I've not any prosperity waste is a popular export article trade in scrap ready vehicles also boons every year hundreds of thousands of cars are exported abroad just from Germany many used car dealers in Berlin have specialized in export Nigerian Laurence Okubo has been working in the export trade for years once a week his old cars are picked up by a transport company and shipped to Africa via the port of Hamburg Lawrence yeah hello where do these this cars go to yeah I'll go into Africa can you show me the ports this is Tama Takoradi sorry some of the ports will have more volumes Bishop to West African region a lot of shipments there individuals they come and they buy cars and then the ship for personal use why there are some people like also business people who comes to buy a car car dealers they buy also and then there is sell in Africa to maximize profits Lawrence Okubo ships the old cars which only have a scrap value in this country filled with electronic goods a lucrative side business to help cover the high transport costs as freight costs are charged at a flat rate per car scrap car trade can make a lot of money so this gusto be able to cover for the transportation and and everything you know so by loading the cars they have by the time the the car is cleared from the port they also sell this goose to cover up for the expenses you know which they have incurred during this whole transaction to ship a car to Ghana would cost 400 euros for a normal saloon car it'd cost a lot to fix the car here in Germany it's expensive so when it's 40 sometimes they do buy it is cheaper to repay it in Africa transporting old cars to the third world has been a mass business for a long time German vans and Japanese brands are especially in demand we would like to find out who pulls the strings and where the old European cars and the electronic waste really end up we follow the trail in the port of Hamburg in Germany's largest container port thousands of tonnes of goods are handled every second illegal electronic waste is also exported from here for police and customs it's like searching for the needle in the haystack to ensure that the waste smugglers will not get the upper hand in the end individual containers are inspected on a random basis often Goods are registered as so-called flea market goods whereby there are so many flea market goods in these containers I don't believe that much is ever actually sold there are definitely containers that arouse the suspicion that someone is looking to hide their true shipment in the last container I open there were over 40 unannounced refrigerators often what is declared as jumble sale fair is in reality illegally exported electrical waste in Hamburg alone almost 10 million containers are dispatched every year the four officers of the environmental crime squad carry out around 130 inspections a year and only in a fraction of the cases defective electronic equipment is confiscated it's an almost hopeless battle regardless of where we are with this kind of harbor we can only carry out spot checks obviously with spot checks we can end up with the one container which is an order and that's how containers get through we can't check every container and neither can customers it's just not feasible it's estimated that annually 1.5 million tons of electric goods are illegally exported from the EU 400 tons of this is thought to be highly toxic electronic waste after weeks of radio silence the unexpected happens our prepared fridge signals once again the signal leads us to the container port in Hamburg seven RCBS have just received a new GPS signal which displays that the fridge has ended up at the hamburg harbor we're latching on to the signal now and driving there to see if we can find our fridge of hidden our suspicions have been confirmed the signal leads us to a large container ship with destination Ghana the cargo ship will travel three weeks before reaching the port of Tama we decide to fly to Ghana to see where our electronic waste will actually end up back in Ghana the illegal imports enter the country via the port of Tama 30 kilometers north of the capital Accra according to the Basel convention scrap ready vehicles or fridges should be confiscated or destroyed upon arrival apparently there are ways and means to bypass the import regulations final destination akbah blushy it is from here that our fridge sends its last GPS signal the sky is clouded with dark black smoke taking one's breath away a multitude of people work surrounded by toxic fumes yami Allah forgive us that the last signal came from somewhere in this area which is relatively accurate and there is simply fire everywhere where electrical waste is being burned we can surmise that this is where our fridge from Germany ended up dr. shonkoff thoughts and calamities in AD bud blushy on the outskirts of the capital Accra huge amounts of our prosperity wastes are disposed of on a plot of 6 square kilometers the waste dump of Agra blushy is one of the most toxic places in the world around 8,000 people live on the swimming mass of toxic waste many have even built their huts in the middle of this burning hell because this is where money can be earned seventeen-year-old Haruna has been working here for nine years every day when I come here for work maybe I will get just 20,000 where I will get 150 where I will get 10 Sadie as soon as I get a larger amount I send it to my father and mother who live in the north I also have a little brother so the money is also used to send him to school but I don't get enough of everything they don't give anything away so at the end we suffer so I do you is awful yeah our defective fridge with tracking device has sent its last GPS signal from here where the fridge should be standing a group of young people is burning electronic waste to get the valuable raw materials if you the fire cuts if the fire catches this one I will shake it like this and all the rubber will come off leaving public really fresh you were left mess every day Haruna is enveloped by the highly toxic smoke the foam isolation of old fridges is used as fire accelerator close by to environmental activists do their daily round in their battle against the toxic waste 15% of all electronic inputs that come into the country came in as junk there is also another 30% are coming in blocking from become a repeater reused now if you are a 15-2 these 30% you are getting about 45% of broken electronic gadgets that come into the country almost half of all imports regard the activists regularly take soil samples to document the dimensions of the environmental catastrophe in Ghana burning electronic waste generates cancer-causing dioxins and heavy metals the scrap workers and aqua blushy know that they're risking their health but most of them don't have any alternative haruna also suffers from the toxic clouds of smoke created by burning plastics that pay me sometimes it pains me sometimes because of the smoke the smoke is very hot and the burning rubber sometimes enters your lungs then you go so because of the copper and the chemicals inside I don't want to come here I suffer here every day and I have to come back myself a yo way every guy comes in Haruna ignores the pains because no one else will offer him almost 500 euros per month i working for my brothers my brother is a very good salesman so I give him the goods for one CD or 50000 he sells them for me swallowed a lot many slum inhabitants moved to Accra from the poor north of Ghana in search of work and prosperity but for most sooner or later life in one of the most toxic places in the world turns into a struggle for survival there are no statistics that describe how high the cancer rate is or how many people die from lung cancer here but most of them don't get older than 45 years we kind of assume it's about 6000 people who are working directly in here and then there are other people who are also dependent on what's certainly like women and children who are selling what our food etc so the area and tally could be heading towards 8,000 people children also work on the toxic waste dump several hundred in Akbar plushie alone like 13 year old Fifi instead of going to school they insure their families incomes he searches the toxic ground with a magnet to find small metal parts and collects what the older ones have left my dream is to have a car or a motorbike sometimes I look at the motor races over and t-shi yeah a motorbike that'd be great they make bikes cars and motorbikes from the metal when I'm big I want one for myself that's my biggest dream for three years day after day Fifi has been working in the blazing heat of the scrapheap payment is per weight the more metal he finds the more he earns for two kilos of scraps he receives 18 pesos which is four euro cents on a good day he earns the equivalent of one euro sixty [Music] 150 children work for the middleman who buys the metal he makes big profits every day he buys around 4000 kilos of metal scraps and sells them on to his customers for much more they take some of the metals to make new things container plates throat rows these kind of things yeah it's good business if you sell around four and a half thousand kilograms you can get six thousand or more sadies as profits the middleman receives the equivalent of 1400 euros for four and a half tonnes of metal scraps in Ghana it's a small fortune but the big money is made by the company's processing the metal scraps there's crab delays there are middlemen and then accompanies that's do they recycle for example does metal smelters in Ghana and so some type of a scrub scrub study of TVA are sent directly to them for smelting they also make some profit out of these people but then the guy who buys and sells to the factory mostly makes their profit out of the scrap activities a large part of the middle extracted is exported to Europe and the USA where it is amongst other things also used in the car industry later they often end up being sold to Africa again as used cars because no cars are manufactured in this country and new cars are as good as unaffordable German vans are particularly popular especially the older makes that are easy to repair [Music] but electronics are once I started from 2000 Moodle that is a CDI that's give them a lot of problems the injectors you can repair them it's very hard to to service silken service and is very expensive the ones over 10 years over age in Ghana so you pay penalty on that some are five percent penalty some 20 percent penalty so the tasks are very high this van also originates from Europe it arrived in Ghana only two days ago now it is to be sold German makes are very popular with the ghanaians they have the reputation of being robust and long-lasting [Music] oh very neat okay for an incredible nine thousand euros the van changes owners a large part of the prices due to transport costs customs fees and taxes the buyer wants to convert the old van and use it as a share taxi this one takes 23 passengers so everybody wants the one who can take more passengers down there cos no we have to time they open by the can tick not a lot of us just like that demo one so everybody like to take this car Vans converted into share taxis of the main means of transportation in Ghana hundreds of share taxis are waiting around the big bus stations to pick up passengers under monstro tro has been in operation for an incredible 23 years and he also swears by german technology the engine the engine is very strong that's why people like the mercedes mercedes benz and jen causes no problems other engines three four years most wrote rows are quite old an average of around 20 to 30 years in Europe they would have been classed as old-timers ages ago every year tens of thousands of used cars are exported to Ghana from Europe most scrapped vans are converted to share taxis when they arrived in Ghana the discarded vans are often in a desolate State whole city districts have specialized in converting the old cars [Music] if the car comes urine is completely broken everything is broken then we rebuild the car completely if only one side has spoiled and needs to be redone we can do it in one week but if it is too much the whole car is spoiled and we can do it in two months or three months necessity is the mother of invention Ghana's tro tro specialists turn the european scrap cars into drivable vehicles with the simplest means first they deal with the bodywork the older makes are very popular because they're easier to repair they bring the calf if they bring the car to me and brought it at the harbour they are often rusty place so we mold the plate anew and weld it back on and we would every day we weld it back there are no laws on occupational safety here non insulated electrical cables lie on the floor instead of safety shoes the men wear toe slippers sunglasses are meant to protect the eyes during welding work a lot of resourcefulness and imagination are also required for the construction of the interiors if it was a container then there are no seats inside so we have to make them new we have to go to the market and Chima and buy new pipes then we Bend it cut it into pieces and welded together after we have done our part we send it to an upholsterer they put the leather ones but then they bring it back to us and we fix up the inside to us now fix teeth inside [Music] with the simplest resources ganas most popular means of transport is created from a scrap ready european van from scrap heap to tro tro ii life of old european cars illegally imported electronic waste does not find a happy ending in ghana return to at bog Bellucci the most toxic place on earth in Ghana electronic waste is burnt on illegal waste dumps a whole region has been contaminated for years environmental activist Artyom Oh Samson has been taking soil samples in the contaminated area he also sends these to Europe it makes him very angry that more and more illegal electronic waste reaches Ghana he which has a lot of toxic substances in them lead arsenic mercury cadmium this all found in here is in very very high quantities that can actually a fairly high development of children lots and cadmium are known to cause a lot of chances mercury as well when you have been in plastics you are producing some organic chemicals called thousands and coolants and these dollars are cancer-causing and so the poison is so unacceptable the levels are just too high for even human beings to live around we are making a side trip to Europe to have the samples tested we want to know how high the concentration of toxic substances really is in the Berlin Institute for environmental analytics the research focus lies on finding heavy metals because apart from mercury cadmium and arsenic burning electronic waste also generates highly toxic lead what are the health consequences from our prosperity waste for the people who work daily on the toxic waste dump to secure their existence according to our policies we shouldn't be seeing more than 700 milligrams per kilo we've measured and assembled over 25,000 milligrams per kilo this concentration of lead is extremely unusual a canned off the top of my head remember having ever seen these kinds of results it's known of course that let us point in this acting on the blood nerves and kidney now the health effects are dependent upon how far you take it up into your body and we have seen that the sample is very quick to release fine particles which makes it very hard to avoid uptake wonderful to image for Martin doesn't respond also halt in Europe strict limits apply to heavy metals the sample must be disposed of via a hazardous waste plant a glimpse behind the scenes of a Hamburg hazardous waste incineration plant shows how treatment of highly toxic waste is officially maintained in Germany here everything is burnt that is not accepted by incineration plants for normal household waste over 900 dangerous substances of all kinds go through the plant unquote intestine known as our main clients are industrial mainly chemical companies paint coatings companies bulk goods waste from the cosmetics industry our main market is in Germany we do however also have many clients across Europe worldwide even and the reason for this is easy Germany and Europe have a very high standard of disposal regulations but also in Europe disposal companies declare toxic waste deliveries incorrectly to save costs to find out what the garbage really contains the hazardous waste is tested for its chemical composition before it's burnt only in this way the plant can ensure that there will be no explosion in the furnace that's what the Fram PokeMart I set up we start with a flame reaction test we measure the pH value try multiple reactions out and once all these have been completed we have fully screened the waste in case a value doesn't match regulations we have to contact the waste provider in the worst case scenario we have to reject it but our pilot up camisa official trade in German waste is also lucrative turnovers in the region of 3-digit millions are not unusual the waste materials are transported into the furnaces in big wagons or if extremely dangerous in barrels highly toxic smoke gases formed during incineration have to be purified in a multi-stage process apart from ashes also large amounts of highly toxic slag are generated as where the drums which we get rid of completely or feet of the oven produce metals and salts which are left over because the majority of our slag comes from hazardous waste it contains a base ingredient of heavy metals we have around 40,000 tonnes of this our largest remainder 40 to 50 thousand even ultimately this slag is then transported to an above ground hazardous waste Depot but part of the hazardous waste never makes it to the disposal process instead smugglers bring it into Africa as electronic waste often declared as jumble sale fair it's estimated that recycling European electronic waste generates a commercial value of 300 million euros in Ghana an important economic factor ensuring a daily income for many people Accra just in Ghana's capital alone 8,000 people make a living from European electronic waste many young men come from the poor north of the country to Accra they move through the streets of the capital with their carts in search of recyclables Kofi is one of them he's been working as a scrap collector for five years environmental protection is of little interest to these people in Africa who are fighting to survive how much will you give me I want 12 Ghana cities no let me give you 1010 got our cities for this yeah okay give me the money Kofi pays the equivalent of two and a half euros for a broken CRT television and wants to sell it on to a middleman for four euros his daily income is often a matter of luck Ghana does not have a comprehensive state organised waste disposal process a large part of the waste is deposited on dump sites the scrap collectors go from door to door and mostly by defective electronic goods containing high-quality metals for money I come here for the money I've seen so many of my friends coming here and making it now they're buying cars building houses it's good to become a scrap buyer I'd rather be a scrap buyer because if I take a truck pull it two or four miles and don't find a seller I have to bring it back and sometimes still pay for the truck so this way I lose out a lot sometimes they don't even get anything worldwide up to 50 million tonnes of electronic waste is generated every year a large part of it ends up in Africa in the beginning old computers were declared as development aid since then the stream of garbage keeps growing the valuable raw materials themselves are sold to the countries where they once started their journey at the end of the day kofi sells all his scrap to a dealer and hopes he will get a good price white people from demo it bleed apprised met white people from Tama I pay very good prices when we buy metal for 1.5 million and take it there that'll give us two million three buy aluminum we pay eight million for it bring it to Tama and they give us nine hundred cities for one ton so you have a hundred cities profit scrap collector Kofi earned the equivalent of ten euros today this is an average daily wage for him in Ghana this represents a higher than average income sooner or later our prosperity waste from Europe will also end up on the dump of a bug blow she already used for disposing electronic waste for 20 years the once fertile land is now one of the most contaminated places on earth a toxic cocktail of heavy metals contaminates the soil and will ultimately end up in the food chain a lot of the metals are exported to Western country recently the government of Ghana banned exportation of some of the scraps the steel aluminium where orb and so they those type of scraps are meant to feed the loca smelting industry I am looking forward to a day where the activities have been lifted from the ground and then operates in an environmentally sound manner I believe that area should be transformed into a standardized and recycling center for now no I'm not happy at all recently the Ghana government issued stricter laws regarding the import of electronic waste the import should be forbidden in general in spite of this ban the supplies will keep coming as the consumer frenzy in wealthy countries keeps increasing there is no simple solution to the problem but one thing is for sure every one of us is responsible for the way in which our uninhibited consumerism affects the lives of other people in a globalized world [Music]

Channel: Free High-Quality Documentaries

Views: 1,109,210

Rating: 4.5837564 out of 5

Keywords: Nature, Documentary, HD, Animals, People, Places, Adventures, Countries, Wildlife, Technology, Travel, Portraits, Biography, Science, Bloshie, toxic, waste, scrap, electronic, smoke, Mafia, trade, resources, illegal, cables, Agbogbloshie, Broken computers, televisions, refrigerators

Id: g3-B6ygNT6c

Length: 52min 0sec (3120 seconds)

Published: Fri Jul 13 2018

Reddit Comments

[u/Vingthor8]

Reddit?

[u/MissStabby]

what about overwatch?

[u/regulator3428]

I was going to say Tucson

[u/CockBodman]

Did anyone even watch it?