Journalists Bénédicte Kurzen, Muntaka Chasant and Anas Aremeyaw Anas have reconstructed the journey of electronic waste from Europe to Africa. Ghana has become a destination of choice for these rejects.
Tablets, computers, smartphones and other connected objects are now inseparable from our daily lives. Electrical and electronic waste generated by these devices will reach 82 million in 2030 if nothing is done to reduce or recycle it, according to the Global E-Waste Monitor published by the United Nations. (link in English).
Ghana, a West African country where millions of these European-produced wastes end up, already illustrates this crisis. Photojournalists Muntaka Chasant and Bénédicte Kurzen, as well as activist and investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas, winners of the 13th Carmignac Photojournalism Award, documented it with their photographs. They constitute the exhibition Ghana: on the road to our electronic waste presented from July 1st at the Manuel Rivera-Ortiz Foundation (MRO) as part of the Rencontres de la Photographie d’Arles.
“Anas, Muntaka and Bénédicte delve into the ramifications of e-waste trafficking and reveal the opacity of this globalized circuit. They highlight the paradox of the e-waste economy, which is both an opportunity for thousands of people in Ghana and which has A “considerable human and environmental impact”, underlines the United Nations report illustrated by the reporters’ photos. The result of their investigation, which lasted a year, has already been exhibited in Paris and is currently being presented in New York, at the United Nations headquarters.
The first stop on this e-waste route is the European ports from where Ghanaian exporters in the diaspora ship their goods. In the photo taken at the Paris exhibition, which ended on June 16, we see Sam Osei (center), based in the United Kingdom, and Steven Abu Mensah (left) and Thomas Thompson (right) who work in Germany. In that country, the city of Hamburg is home to one of the main European ports for exporting these parts. (BENEDICTE KURZEN/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION/FG/FRANCEINFO)
Rainham, UK, April 2023. Sam Osei’s depot has been nicknamed “Little Africa” for its diverse clientele. His business, started out of his son’s bedroom, offers storage, shipping, transport, loading and port delivery services. It’s also an informal market where people bring in the electronics they’ve collected. (BENEDICTE KURZEN/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION)
Once in Ghana, these scraps feed the many informal scrapyards that dot the south of the country. In the Ghanaian capital, Zongo Lane brings together small shops selling electronic components, modules and spare parts. Electronic waste also passes through repair shops where it is recycled. It is an entire economic ecosystem that survives thanks to this craft. Ghanaians, but also Nigerians, work at Zongo Lane. (BENEDICTE KURZEN/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION)
Babatunde, a 53-year-old Nigerian scrap dealer, has just gone shopping in the Old Fadama slum in Accra. He purchased end-of-life computers and laptops from an electronic waste market. He disassembles them by hand to recover, among other things, printed circuits, central processing units, memory chips, aluminum, iron and copper wires. (MUNTAKA CHASANT/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION)
E-waste mining is an economy that many communities depend on. On February 9, 2023, Simon Aniah, 24, burns used electrical cables to recover copper near Korle Lagoon. Originally from Vea in northeastern Ghana, Simon and hundreds of other young people migrate from his village and other parts of the Upper East to Accra to work in the e-waste sector. The Upper East, Simon Aniah’s region, has the highest unemployment rate among 15-24 year-olds in Ghana. (MUNTAKA CHASANT/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION)
Accra, Ghana, February 8, 2023. Horses forage in an area of the old Agbogbloshie ironworks site, now demolished. The Old Fadama slum and Agbogbloshie, which was one of the most toxic landfills in the world, are separated by the Korle Lagoon. These areas were once moist and thriving. (MUNTAKA CHASANT/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION)
Frenchwoman Bénédicte Kurzen (center) and Ghanaians Anas Aremeyaw Anas (right) and Muntaka Chasant (left) are the authors of the collective report, “Ghana: On the road of our electronic waste”. The photographs are also exhibited at the United Nations headquarters in New York. (GERALD ANDERSON/ROBIN MADDOCK/MUNATAKA CHASSANT/CARMIGNAC FOUNDATION)
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