China
Africa
Explore chapters and articles related to this topic
Global Circularity
Published in Caroline O’Donnell, Dillon Pranger, The Architecture of Waste, 2020
Caroline O’Donnell, Dillon Pranger
As part of the global trade of recycling, certain African nations are well known for their focus on e-waste, and with established routes and markets they are in prime position to take up the slack created by the rejection of certain materials in Asia. Ghana is home to one of the largest e-waste processing sites in Africa. In 2010, Agbogbloshie, an informal district located in Accra, Ghana, processed 595,000 tons (540,000 metric tonnes) of e-waste per year and through this informal sector was able to recycle 52% of its material.36 However, there are serious concerns over methods of waste processing, specifically burning, which emits toxic chemicals into the surrounding land, air, and water.
Business Models for a CE
Published in Marcello Tonelli, Nicoló Cristoni, Strategic Management and the Circular Economy, 2018
Marcello Tonelli, Nicoló Cristoni
Rare-Earth elements aside, products made of glass, paper, and plastic – for which recycling processes are now relatively mature – and with low cost and intense usage (e.g. water bottles) are generally well suited to re-enter production systems through recycling. Food is also a suitable candidate, thanks to the evolution in anaerobic digestion technology, which makes it possible to break down organic matter (such as animal or food waste) to produce biogas and bio-fertilizers. Construction and electronics are further industries to have displayed an enormous potential with this business model, particularly when considering urban mining. The construction sector has been the target of a number of important measures developed for the collection of specific end-of-life materials, such as the San Francisco “Demolition Debris Recovery Ordinance” in 2006 or the 2000 “Construction Materials Act” in Japan (Silva et al. 2017). For its part, the electronic industry produces tons of e-waste every year. In Europe and the U.S., much of these discarded products are shipped – legally or illegally – to third world countries,21 where they get disposed of in open-sky landfills. Agbogbloshie, a former wetland and suburb of Accra, Ghana, is the largest e-waste site in the world. Poisons such as lead, mercury, arsenic, dioxins, furans, and brominated flame retardants are known to be running into the surrounding soil and water with obvious devastating consequences for the environment and human health. Tests run by Greenpeace labs on water and soil from Agbogbloshie revealed concentrations of toxins at levels a hundred times higher than tolerated.22 Now, pioneering circular companies are investigating ways to turn this global ecological problem into an economic opportunity. For example, California-based BlueOak Resources is currently building the first American urban mining refinery, a facility fully dedicated to recovering valuable metals like gold and copper from e-waste.
Revisiting e-waste management practices in selected African countries
Published in Journal of the Air & Waste Management Association, 2020
Several recycling companies entered into the waste sector in Ghana in which four companies were found active in recycling i.e. Atlantic Recycling, City Waste Recycling, FIDEV Recycling and Blancomet Recycling. These companies do not operate in all the necessary e-waste operations; some form of specialty exists. For instance, Atlantic operates on repair and re-use activities of ICT equipment while FIDEV and Blancomet mainly focus on dismantling and trading of scrap metals. Such specialization can be a good foundation for a sustained value chain in the recycling business. However, Ghana is known for E-waste dumping and recycling WEEE especially at Agbogbloshie center in Accra. Agbogbloshie is the center for e-waste recycling and disposal in the country and even in Africa where large scale manual disassembly of e-waste parts is carried out (Caravanos et al. 2011). The challenge is that informal operation which is dominant in Ghana mostly done by children and serves as a major source of livelihood for many of low-income urban dwellers (Caravanos et al. 2011; Martin 2012). Now, what was free initially for collectors to collect items dumped at street corners, neighborhoods or dumpsites has begun to attract a competitive price as a result of increasing competition from youth unemployment and the entrance of more prospective scavengers driven by rural-urban migration and growing young generation.
E-waste recycling and public exposure to organic compounds in developing countries: a review of recycling practices and toxicity levels in Ghana
Published in Environmental Technology Reviews, 2020
Eric Awere, Peter Appiah Obeng, Alessandra Bonoli, Panin Asirifua Obeng
Asamoah et al. [18] determined PCBs in the breast milk of primiparae (47 participants) and multiparae (58 participants) mothers residing or working in and around the Agbogbloshie e-waste site and a reference site (24 km from Agbogbloshie; with no known e-waste activities). The total PCB concentration in the breast milk of mothers at Agbogbloshie was 3.64 ng/g lipid wt compared with 0.026 ng/g lipid wt at the reference site. The PCB congeners with the highest concentrations in the breast milk were PCB-18, PCB-28 and PCB-138 which accounted for about 75% of the sum of mean concentrations of PCBs. In another study, three different congeners of PCBs (153, 138, and 180) were measured in the blood of 39 e-waste workers at Agbogbloshie which were significantly higher (arithmetic mean of 0.021–0.036 µg/l whole blood) than the concentrations measured in the controls [36]. The authors reported that they found no correlation between exposure to PCB and e-waste activities at Agbogbloshie, but the relatively higher concentration recorded in the exposed population compared with the controls is suggestive of e-waste recycling being a possible contributor to PCB in human body fluids. PCBs have also been reported in human milk in Accra. Asante et al. [119] found an increased internal exposure to PCBs (62 ng/g lipid wt) through human milk in Accra between 2004 and 2009.
Association between global DNA methylation (LINE-1) and occupational particulate matter exposure among informal electronic-waste recyclers in Ghana
Published in International Journal of Environmental Health Research, 2022
Ibrahim Issah, John Arko-Mensah, Laura S. Rozek, Katie Rentschler, Thomas P. Agyekum, Duah Dwumoh, Stuart Batterman, Thomas G. Robins, Julius N. Fobil
Our study’s significant strength is that it is one of the first to examine the association between PM and repetitive elements DNA methylation in electronic waste recyclers in Ghana. Furthermore, the Agbogbloshie e-waste recycling site is arguably one of the most contaminated, best researched, and most easily accessible site worldwide and therefore represents a good place to investigate pollution exposure to workers and associated adverse health outcomes.