Electronic scrap, the new source of wealth for international criminal organizations

Dense columns of smoke can be seen rising for kilometers from the Agbogbloshie landfill.

The air in this huge landfill, located west of Accra, the capital of Ghana, is highly toxic. The closer you get, the harder it is to breathe and your vision becomes blurry.

Around these smoke there are dozens of men waiting for the tractors to unload piles of cables to set them on fire. Others climb a hill of toxic waste and take down televisions, computers and washing machine parts to set them on fire.

Men extract valuable metals such as copper and gold from electrical and electronic waste (known in English as e-waste), many of whom have come to Ghana from rich countries.

“I don’t feel well,” says young worker Abdulla Yakubu, his eyes red and watery as he burns cables and plastic.

“The air, as you can see, is very polluted and I have to work here every day, so it definitely affects our health.”

Abiba Alhassan, a mother of four, works near the fire site sorting used plastic bottles, and the toxic smoke does not spare her either.

“Sometimes it’s very difficult to even breathe, my chest is heavy and I feel very bad,” he says.

Electronic waste is the fastest growing waste stream in the world, with 62 million tons generated in 2022, 82% more than in 2010, according to a UN report.

And the main cause of the increase in electronic waste is the electronization of our societies thanks to gadgets ranging from smartphones, computers and smart alarms to cars with electronic devices installed, the demand for which is constantly increasing.

Annual shipments of smartphones, for example, have more than doubled since 2010, reaching 1.2 billion in 2023, according to a UN report on Trade and Development this year.

According to the UN, only about 15% of the world’s e-waste is currently recycled, so unscrupulous companies try to dispose of it elsewhere, often through middlemen who then traffic the waste out of the country.

This waste is difficult to recycle due to its complex composition, which includes toxic chemicals, metals, plastics, and elements that cannot be easily separated and recycled.

Even developed countries do not have adequate infrastructure for electronic waste management.

UN investigators say they are seeing a significant increase in e-waste trafficking from developed countries and rapidly rising economies.

E-waste is now the most frequently confiscated item, accounting for one in six seizures of any type of waste globally, the World Customs Organization has found.

Officials at the port of Naples in Italy showed the BBC World Service how traffickers were misdeclaring and hiding electronic waste which they said accounted for around 30% of their seizures.

They showed a scanned image of a container bound for Africa, carrying a car. But when port officials opened the container, they found broken vehicle parts and electronic waste piled inside, with some oil leaking.

“Personal effects are not packed like this, a large part of them are destined to be thrown into the sea,” says Luigi Garruto, an investigator at the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF), who collaborates with port officials throughout Europe.

In the UK, authorities say they are also seeing an increase in e-waste trafficking.

Speaking from the port of Felixstowe, Ben Ryder, spokesman for the UK Environment Agency, said: waste is often mistakenly declared as reusable, but in reality, “it is broken down into precious metals and then illegally burned after reaching its destination” in countries like Ghana.

Traffickers also try to hide e-waste by shredding it and mixing it with other forms of plastic that can be exported with the correct documentation, he said.

An earlier report by the World Customs Organization showed there had been an almost 700% increase in end-of-life motor vehicle traffic.a huge source of electronic waste.

But experts say these seizures and reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

Although there has not been a comprehensive global study tracking all e-waste trafficked out of the developed world, the UN e-waste report shows that Southeast Asian countries remain a major destination.

But as some of those countries are clamping down on waste trafficking, UN researchers and activists say more and more e-waste is finding its way into African countries.

In Malaysia, authorities seized 106 containers of hazardous electronic waste between May and June 2024, according to Masood Karimipour, regional representative of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

But traffickers often outsmart authorities with new smuggling tactics and governments do not catch up quickly enough, UN investigators say.

“When ships carrying hazardous waste, such as e-waste, cannot easily unload it at their usual destination, they turn off their beacon when they are in the middle of the sea so that they cannot be detected,” Karimapour said.

“And illegal cargo is dumped into the sea as part of a business model of organized crime activity.

“There are too many groups and too many countries benefiting from this global criminal enterprise.”

According to a recent report by the World Health Organization (WHO), when e-waste is burned or disposed of, the plastic and metals it contains can be very dangerous to human health and have negative effects on the environment.

The WHO states that Many recipient countries also witness informal recycling of e-waste, meaning untrained people, including women and children, carry out the work without proper protective equipment or infrastructure, and are exposed to toxic substances such as lead..

The International Labor Organization and WHO estimate that millions of women and children working in the informal recycling sector may be affected.

The organizations also state that exposure during fetal development and in children can cause disorders related to neurodevelopment and neurobehavior.

Starting in January 2025, the global waste treaty, the Basel Convention, will require exporters to declare all e-waste and obtain permission from receiving countries.

Researchers hope this will close some of the loopholes that traffickers have been using to ship such waste around the world.

But there are some countries, including the United States (a major e-waste exporter), that have not ratified the Basel Convention, one of the reasons activists say e-waste trafficking continues.

“As we begin to crack down, the United States is sending more and more trucks across the border into Mexico“said Jim Puckett, executive director of Basel Action Network, an organization campaigning to end toxic trade, including e-waste.

At the Agbogbloshie scrapyard in Ghana, the situation is getting worse by the day.

Abiba says he spends almost half of the money he earns collecting waste on medicine to deal with the conditions resulting from working at the landfill.

“But I’m still here because This is my and my family’s means of survival.“.

The Ghana Revenue Authority and the Ministry of Environment did not respond to multiple requests for comment.