Photos of an e-waste dumping ground

Re-using devices helps us also reduce the number of new devices needed... which is what probably scares the corporate oligarchy. If we're not buying new phones every couple of years how will the stock prices keep going up?

Never the less, the devices we make these days can last a long, long time. I've been repairing and maintaining iPhone 5's, 7's, and 8's that are no where near their end of life. The iPhone has a couple of small electrolytic capacitors which should have a useful life of at least 20 years. And can be replaced! The batteries and screens can replaced. These devices can last much longer than we give them credit for.

But tech companies have been struggling to make it illegal or difficult to repair for a long time. I've been seeing photojournalist projects such as this since the late 90s at least (longer perhaps). In North America we had a culture that valued repairing and building things that lasted. It's as good a time as any to push for this to return! Support policy makers that are pushing for right-to-repair and environmental protection!

And pick up a new hobby if you are able. Support your local tech geeks if you can!

This story isn't so much about "we need to stop consuming new electronics" as it is "we need to ensure that electronic waste doesn't end up being dumped on random impoverished towns in Africa".

These guys are burning off the insulation from wires when there are simple cheap machines that automatically strip it all off. This is more a portrayal of extreme poverty than anything.

A well run landfill looks nothing like this and these are in no way a foregone conclusion of someone throwing away an old iPhone 3 or whatever.

There is no more correlation here than with, say, Newton has the apple fall and then we cut to scenes of firebombing.

https://maps.app.goo.gl/mjCvuMaUaZ3154eD9

There's a river that runs through the e-waste garbage dump, straight into the ocean less than 1 Mile away.

The only thing I can do with it is to throw it away, because Apple in Poland redirects to some garbage collecting company and even in US the device is worth 0$. I think materials and working Retina screen is worth much more than nothing. Great quality build, great hardware set, 64G memory. Much better than current models. But it still is a trash and waste for planet :( Sad.

Sometime someone designed an IC, lithographed it on a high tech factory, soldered it onto a PCB and now it lies under your feet like billions of other rusty sharp parts, as if they were potato skins or plastic bags.

Just a few decades ago nations would start WW3 over this alien technology dump. Now they try find cheaper ways to sneak more waste into it.

Anyone claiming that “right to repair” fixes any of this is missing the part where people don’t want to spend their lives repairing everything they have. Also, the new stovetop is far more energy efficient than the old one with is yet another balancing aspect of replacing old tech.

We can’t (just) take an individualized approach to a solution, which is an artifact of the 80s and 90s when corporations and governments shifted responsibility to the individual to recycle a water bottle, for example.

It seems like the best solution is to impose a waste reduction fee that is built into price that pays for ewaste reduction. This could empower Ghanaians to build out this as a safer industry.

How much would that fee be? And who would spend the political capital to enact such a tariff? That’s the part that feels impossible.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p05dmmns/the-insider-r...

The BBC player only works in the UK, but you can easily find the episode on Youtube.

That waterway is flowing directly into the ocean, and upstream from a fishing village.

This is hard, dangerous, indecent work by any first world standard, but it's still work, it's still opportunity, and it's still an industry for people who otherwise might not have one. I don't wish to see this kind of pollution and suffering exist, but I also don't wish to take away something that despite its awfulness is still someone's livelihood. Ladders need bottom rungs. When they closed sweatshops in Bangladesh, the children had to resort to prostitution.

Not only it would reduce e-waste, but it would also disincentivize the lowest-margin, sweat shop production.

Since the topic of TFA is e-waste, many comments here promote "right to repair" legislation as a panacea. I don't think that "right to repair" addresses the root issue in a broad enough way to make a dent. It only addresses a subset of material, operates at hobby scale, and may mandate certain things, like socketed components, that make full-scale automated recycling more difficult.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/jun/22/amazon-fa...

New phones especially I just don't understand anymore. My phone's been able to do everything I need it to do since like, 2016. New AI "feature," better processors, bigger screens, I don't get it. I have an excellent camera (fuji xt5) so better cameras don't excite me.

I just finished The Grapes Of Wrath and this opening sentence feels like an odd futuristic parallel to that story.

Either the ones that people sent back because they thought that it would be simple and was not (my Cisco home switch), or older tech that is completely fine for my needs.

My personal experience is that when electronics work for two weeks, they will work "forever" - I like someone else doing the test :)

Of course it depends on the hardware. It will be different for a switch and a UPS, or an SSD, ...

I wonder if that makes the problem worse by making it hard to ship e-waste to places where it can be more efficiently recycled, so instead it ends up in places where corruption lets it in but there are no recycling facilities beyond "pickers?"

These tools don't have a second-hand market. The expensive built-to-last ones do.

Edit: and let’s not forget the deprecation of older standards like 2G and 3G cell networks, or the rise of USB-C.

The other end is... you.

I'd hazard the actual problem in this picture is Ghana's GDP/capita being in 4 digit territory and not the badly disposed of waste dump.