Electronic Waste Dumpsite

What used to be the pristine waters of the Korle Lagoon in the city of Accra, Ghana, West Africa, is now an electronics dumpsite that is so toxic that neither fish or worms can survive. Among it you will find children like Fati,8, working with other children searching through hazardous waste in hopes of finding whatever she can to exchange for pennies in order to survive. While balancing a bucket on her head with the little metal she has found, tears stream down her face as the result of the pain that comes with the malaria she contracted some years ago. Many of the children are homeless all living together in a 10x10 foot shack with no toilets or electricity. In another photograph Philimon’s charcoal black hands show the carbon residue and soot and his eyelashes are singed from the flames he works in as he burns the remenents in hopes of finding metal. He is 14 years old and he uses his hands to sift through the burned-over soil to find bits of precious metals. He is homeless and was forced to leave school when he was in the third grade after his father could no longer care for him. Most nights he sleeps on the street and when it rains he sleeps under someone’s awning or in a truck. The children that work on this e-waste dumpsite burn computers in order to extract any valuable metals that might fall to the ground. In the process they expose themselves to toxic fumes that gather in their clothes, skin, and lungs. These are cast-off computers from the Western world.