Journal of Health and Pollution

E-waste (electronic waste from discarded computers and printers, cell phones, televisions and similar consumer products) is a complicated mixture of metals, chemicals and plastics.

Despite the Basel Convention controlling the export of e-waste, e-waste is often sent to low-income countries under the guise of “working products”. Recently countries in Africa, such as Ghana and Nigeria, have had a deluge of e-waste.  Non-working products are usually burned to recover some of the materials, such as here at the Agbogbloshie scrap yard in Ghana, releasing a cocktail of toxins into the air.

 

Mercury is often used for artisanal gold mining in poor countores without gloves or other protective equipment.  Low cost, safer alternative technnologies, such as concentration techniques and borax for gold extraction can reduce exposure to toxic substances such as mercury, and assist in decreasing the global burden of disease.  

Many people pick trash by hand out of ponds contaminated with Chromium

Boys playing on lead mining spoils in Bagega, Zamfara State, Nigeria, November 2010.  Before remediation, local children regularly played on soil containing up to 20% lead.