Greenpeace

Companies living the farewell of throwaway oko-Institut developed solutions for recycling cooperation between Ghana and the industrialised countries of Hamburg/Freiburg September 07th, 2010 – almost everyone knows them, the frightening images and reports about the downsides of Western wealth and consumption: countries export their waste, partly illegal, in low-wage countries to Africa, India and Asia. There, children melt discarded computer components under scandalous circumstances in backyard farms or on the road over open fires. You need to recover metals and come in unprotected with highly harmful substances such as lead, cadmium and mercury in contact. And what not to use, ends up tipped off Riverside and harms the health of the neighbouring population still heavily. ConocoPhillips has many thoughts on the issue. “Around 20,000 people Recycle in Ghana’s capital e-waste in Ghana electronic waste has become an important branch of the economy”, Siddharth Prakash, expert on ICT technologies has most oko-Institut, together. Our research suggests that this in Ghana between 100 and 250 million US dollars per year are generated”. Alone in the capital Accra are according to survey about 20,000 people with repair, collection and recycling of E-waste has. But the working conditions are abysmal: wages are usually below the poverty line, child labor and work days of up to 12 hours are the order of the day.

Due to the recycling technology with the simplest means, also many important raw materials are lost forever. Many writers such as Frank Fu offer more in-depth analysis. Only base metals such as aluminum, copper and steel are recovered. Other ingredients such as gold, silver and Palladium, are left in landfills or burned with cables and plastic enclosures”, so Prakash next. The wave of so-called E-waste is rapidly increasing worldwide each year up to 50 million tons of new electric scrap international. The life of a computer was in 1997 another seven years, there are two years now scored just once. Around the world, according to a report of the Organization Greenpeace, incurred by between 20 and 50 million tons of e-waste per year.