Ghana’s Agbogbloshie e-waste dumpsite among world’s top-ten most toxic places – Report
Agbogbloshie, a suburb of Ghana’s capital Accra, has been listed among the top ten most polluted places in the world.
According to a report titled “The Top Ten Toxic Threats: Cleanup, Progress, and Ongoing Challenges” and released November 7, 2013, the Agbogbloshie dumpsite is the second largest electronic waste processing area in West Africa.
E-waste is a broad term referring to a range of electronics, including refrigerators, microwaves, and televisions.
Jointly produced by New York-based Blacksmith Institute and Green Cross Switzerland, the report noted that because of the heterogeneous composition of these e-waste materials at the area, recycling them safely is complex and can require a high level of skill.
The report said “A range of recovery activities takes place in Agbogbloshie, each presenting unique occupational and ecological risks.”
It added “The primary activity of concern from a public health perspective is the burning of sheathed cables to recover the copper material inside. Styrofoam packaging is utilized as a fuel to burn the material in open areas.”
As a vibrant informal settlement with considerable overlap between industrial, commercial, and residential zones, the Agbogbloshie area according to the report witness heavy metals released in the burning process that easily migrate into homes, food markets and other public areas.
“Samples taken around the perimeter of Agbogbloshie, for instance, found a presence of lead levels as high as 18,125 ppm in soil,” said the report. According to the publishers of the report, the USEPA standard for lead in soil is 400 ppm.
A sample done on five workers on the site found aluminum, copper, iron, and lead levels above the American Conference Of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH) Threshold Limit Value (TLV) guidelines. The TLV is parts per million (PPM) of surrounding air, and for fumes, mists, and dusts as milligrams per cubic meter (mg/m3) of surrounding air.
“For instance, it was found that one volunteer had aluminum exposure levels of 17mg/m3 compared with the ACGIH TLV guideline of 1.0mg/m3,” it said.
The report stated that Ghana annually imports around 215,000 tons of secondhand consumer electronics from abroad, primarily from Western Europe, and generates another 129,000 tons of e-waste every year.
It is expected that Ghana’s e-waste imports will double by 2020, the report said assuming growth continues in a linear manner.
The Agbogbloshie site was chosen among the top-ten toxic places in the world based upon the severity of their risk to health, identified by both site assessments and independent reports.
Other toxic sites included in the report were Chernobyl, Ukraine; Citarium River, Indonesia; Dzershinsk, Russia; Hazaribagh, Bangladesh; and Kabwe, Zimbabwe.
The rest are Kalimantan, Indonesia; Matanza Riachuel, Argentina; Niger River Delta, Nigeria and the Norilsk, Russia.
The health of more than 200 million people is at risk daily from pollution issues like those found at the sites listed, it was reported.
The Blacksmith Institute said the goal of the report is “illuminate this often overlooked public health threat rather than to be comprehensive”.
The Blacksmith Institute is a non-profit establishment, which provides expertise to local agencies, dedicated to clean up some of the most polluted areas in the world with the sole aim to save lives.
By Ekow Quandzie
Video: E-Waste in Ghana