Accra – Ghana. Its name is Agbogbloshie, but when you look for it, you better ask for “Sodom and Gomorrah”, everyone knows it with that name. It is the black dump of the West. 100,000 tons a year including mobiles, fridges, televisions, computers. Here, they are burnt, opened, selected, recycled and re-sold, to then enter again the cycle of production and sale. 80,000 is the estimated population, mainly coming from the North and the most depressed areas of Ghana. They, the “victims of our wealth”, are just on the lowest level of the exploitation pyramid of the e-waste. “My son and my house are the most precious things I have”, says Rashida while proudly letting us into her den made of cardboard and fridge skeletons. Though here “houses” change every day. The writing “Understanding the times” on the metal sheets of the once bus and roof for some of them actually seems to be a warning of it.
Stefano Stranges – Italian independent photoreporter.
