Comments on: One man's trash is another man's gold

One man's trash is another man's gold

Christ, what an asshole — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:48:03 -0800

FRONTLINE: Ghana - Digital Dumping Ground On the outskirts of Ghana's biggest city sits a smoldering wasteland, a slum carved into the banks of the Korle Lagoon, one of the most polluted bodies of water on earth. The locals call it Sodom and Gomorrah. One of the biggest fallouts? Identity Theft.

By: aetg

aetg — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:02:00 -0800

What I don't see in this article is exactly where the computers are coming from. Are the computers in Ghana the result of computer recycling?

By: localhuman

localhuman — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:12:40 -0800

I watched this video two nights ago. Some really terrific journalism, but it makes me feel like I feel after reading a cormac mccarthy novel.

By: Gungho

Gungho — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:17:07 -0800

OK people it is really simple...Destroy the drive before dumping. Take a hammer and a screwdriver. Place pointy end on drive, mash with hammer until pointy end goes through drive case and shatters the platters.

By: hippybear

hippybear — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:19:29 -0800

What I don't see in this article is exactly where the computers are coming from. The article states: When containers of old computers first began arriving in West Africa a few years ago, Ghanaians welcomed what they thought were donations to help bridge the digital divide. But soon exporters learned to exploit the loopholes by labeling junk computers "donations," leaving men like Godson to sort it out. It still isn't clear from exactly where, though.

By: battleshipkropotkin

battleshipkropotkin — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:21:38 -0800

Digital Dump? Please seed!

By: Western Infidels

Western Infidels — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:34:30 -0800

Remember, A single overwrite is enough to effectively destroy all the data on your old hard disk. And it can be done free. But it would be even better to just stop dumping the stuff. Ghana's not the only place polluted by our old junk.

By: lekvar

lekvar — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:53:18 -0800

Are the computers in Ghana the result of computer recycling? I used to spend a good amount of time volunteering for a computer recycling company, and one of the biggest hurdles the organization had to overcome, and overcome repeatedly, was finding a reliable means of processing the e-waste that came in. They were a small operation, so they didn't have any of the reclamation/processing equipment themselves, so they passed on a good portion of the waste to outside contractors. In the years I was there, they had to back out of at least two partnerships when it was revealed that the outside contractors were simply stripping out the copper and dumping the rest in East Asia in big, nasty piles. We're talking dozens of shipping container's worth of toxic garbage. The organization did the best it could to make sure that the outside contractors were on the level, but the all-mighty dollar was too tempting for many. So, while this might not be what happened in the case of the article linked above, it's not uncommon, and we're going to be hearing about it more and more.

By: East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94

East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 13:53:46 -0800

There are recycling facilities that promise not to export your e-waste. Seek them out. And wipe your drive.

By: StickyCarpet

StickyCarpet — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:09:16 -0800

Wall Street firms regularly discard hundreds or more of old model computers, and there is a class of scavangers that pick them out of dumpsters, get them running and resell them. Used to be you could get 2 or 3 hundred in the 'hood for anything that could go online. Now, with cheap netbooks, people fill up shipping containers of these refurbished machines for bulk export. These are sold primarily to African brokers whose checks often bounce, and I've seen physical altercations while the trucks are being loaded here in downtown Manhattan, when the envelope of cash is short.

By: lalochezia

lalochezia — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:16:17 -0800

Our descendants will curse our names a thousand times.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 14:35:52 -0800

There are recycling facilities that promise not to export your e-waste. Yeah, they had one of those on the show. And then they showed the e-waste being exported.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:12:25 -0800

In the PRI piece the reporter talks about seeing computers with labels identifying them as property of local councils in the UK. I'm sure they come from a variety of sources though.

By: XMLicious

XMLicious — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:16:04 -0800

You know what just occurred to me - how quasi-biological this looks, for small national economies to be feeding off of the waste of larger national economies. Like the mushrooms that grow on dead and rotting tree limbs that fall to the ground.

By: boots

boots — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 15:38:28 -0800

Fascinating video. I spent quite a bit of time in Sodom and Gomorrah and Agbogbloshie when I was shopping for a motorcycle. In addition to being a "digital dumping ground" (I wasn't aware of this fact), it's also a major food wholesale market, vehicle market, and one of the larger Muslim communities in Accra. And it's not just the locals that call is Sodom and Gomorrah - I bought a tax map from the city surveyor's office, and that's the official name for the neighborhood. Overall, one of the most intense market environments in Ghana.

By: WidgetAlley

WidgetAlley — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 17:35:07 -0800

I wrote an entire term paper for an international politics class on the international waste trade with a focus on e-waste recycling (by the way, there's depressingly little out there about it when one considers the scope of the problem.) One of the most horrifying stats I dredged up is contained within this Greenpeace report: http://www.greenpeace.org/raw/content/international/press/reports/chemical-contamination-at-e-wa.pdf, on page 6. It is particularly enlightening to compare them to the WHO's safe drinking water recommendations for metals.

By: heeeraldo

heeeraldo — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 23:44:24 -0800

I'm torn here, because the video itself is one hell of a downer, but I know a bunch of the grad students in question (in fact, I was at a dinner party with one of them last night-- Dan's the one on the far right in the shot at 11:41) and so it's good to see friends putting out great work and getting recognized for it.