What is e-waste
E-waste, also known as electronic waste is the after product once the electronic has fully exceeded its ability.
How can we prevent toxicity?
To prevent from being exposed to these dangerous chemicals is recycling your products to proper recyclers.
Q: What kind of harmful components are in e-waste?
A: To name a few: Mercury, Lead, Cadmium, Polybrominated Flame Retardants, Barium and Lithium.
Q: What are the effects id exposed to the chemicals
A: The health effects of these toxins on humans include birth defects, brain, heart, liver, kidney and skeletal system damage. They will also significantly affect the nervous and reproductive systems of the human body.
“Globally, an estimated 50 million tons of
E-waste is produced annually”
WHAT IS HAPPENING AROUND THE WORLD?
On average, about 66 pounds of electronic e-waste are made from Americans a year. Some of these products are misrecycled by companies and export them to Africa. The dangers of burning plastic and metal cause pollution into air and water. And that’s why here in EwasteCleanup we’re notifying you in attempt to prevent and eventually stop pollution caused by e-waste.
Much of the waste is transferred to the region of Agbogbloshie in the West African nation Ghana. The capital city of Ghana was a colonial-era football field. In that city stood the national stadium. It wasn’t until it flooded drastically in the 60’s and many lost their lives. Because of this the government came to a decision to convert the stadium into an industrial area. There was a series of military coups but eventually it became abandoned and it slowly was ran by a market district. It has become this city covered by thick black smoke that creeps up and chokes you. Hundreds work there on top of the scrap bits and piles of old electronics.
Children as young as ten work the yard in the search of scrap metal. Many of these kids have cuts, scrapes, burns, and bruises. But they can’t not afford to work, because they need the money to finish school. Also there’s environmental campaigners who say, the young men who worked there the longest time are starting to die really young. These young men tend to have respiratory problems due the polluted air. Another issue the campaigners say is that some of the older boys are dying of cancer.
Read to know more here about electronic waste recycling