The local contours of scavenging for e-waste and higher-valued constituent parts in Accra, Ghana
Introduction
To the first time visitor to the Agbogbloshie scrap yard, the modus operandi of e-waste scavengers may appear chaotic, disorganized and disjointed, worsened by cacophony of noises from the different metal workshops. It is not uncommon to see workers take metallic goods back and forth and into and out of cars and ‘warehouses’. What is carried is not just “waste” of non-value but electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE); computers, televisions, phones, etc., that can have significant value as an amassed constituent part. Informal workers assemble, disassemble and re-assemble components allowing labourers to mediate their own poverty, provide valuable inputs to industry and reduce 5% of the volume of materials destined for landfill (Oteng-Ababio, 2012a). The extraction of valuable metals from WEEE is not only a cost-effective substitute for the extraction of primary raw materials but saves energy and protects scarce natural resources. At the same time, local authorities save significant expenses, which they would have otherwise paid to private waste collection contractors. Researchers have also shown e-waste recycling as far less harmful than the extraction of primary materials (Hischer, Wager, & Gauglhofer, 2005; Huisman, 2003).
Increasing knowledge about the negative consequences of the continuous depletion of the natural resources in today's consumerist society has compelled many local authorities to rethink and embrace the concept of recycling as a sound approach to resource use. With society's hunger for raw materials increasing, production has become challenging and economically inefficient (Sparks & Barnett, 2010). Within the electronic industry, its unprecedented growth rate has led to exponential increase in the demand for critical metals and increasing generation of e-waste. One option to abate this dilemma is to incorporate environmental responsibility into the waste management process by encouraging recycling and resource-recovery, albeit with some technological and socio-economic challenges.
Specifically, the last decade has seen an upsurge in the recycling of e-waste as a livelihood strategy and for resource recovery. In Ghana, Agbogbloshie has assumed that notoriety for being the e-waste recycling hub, creating one of the most perplexing conundrums for Accra's development process (Grant, 2014, Grant and Oteng-Ababio, 2012). The process also provides employment and income to most unskilled and semi-skilled workers (African Union, 2008). According to Prakash, Manhart, Amoyaw-Osei, and Agyekum (2010) e-waste scavenging plays a pivotal role in the constitution of Accra's economy, employing about 4500 to 6000 people directly and approximately 30,000 within the broader e-waste chain of activities. This generates about $105 million to $268 million annually and sustains the livelihood of at least 200,000 people nationwide. Such findings buttress AU's (2008) position that 90% of Ghanaian workers operate in the informal economy.
Despite the obvious contributions to the economy, policy makers often sideline the challenges for informal recyclers. These workers continue to carry out work that is precarious, low-paid, highly stigmatized and laden with health risks. The sector remains in the shadows of the formal economy and suffers not only marginalization and outright hostilities from city authorities but typically, has poor access to urban infrastructure services including credit with its workers being outside the protection of labour law (World Bank, 2009). Recent scholarship however, tends to question whether the sector should still remain a marginalized, “survival” entity, housing excess “workers”, or as a vibrant, entrepreneurial part of the economy, which can stimulate economic growth and job creation (African Union, 2008, Obeng-Odoom, 2011, Sparks and Barnett, 2010).
The authors agree that if the aim of employment is to create jobs and reduce poverty then the so-called informal economy as exhibited in Agbogbloshie, which according to Blacksmith Institute (2013) is among the most toxic dump sites in the world, is no longer a journey but a destination for many (African Union, 2008, Grant, 2009). We document how waste is re-calibrated through the efforts of scavengers that extract precious metals from discarded materials. We profile the role of informal pre-processes in a global e-waste disassembly line that converges on the Agbogbloshie dumpsite.
Moving beyond the consideration of the socio-economic factors that play a part in who becomes a scavenger, our intent is to examine the understudied dynamics of how due to current institutional challenges, e-waste recyclers navigate their way through the physical, socio-political and economic barriers within the urban space. Our paper contributes to geographic literature on resource use (scare) and we contend that moving the framing of e-waste to urban mining can enable national and local policy makers to engage in constructive dialogues to improve the working conditions and the efficiency of metal extraction from e-waste in Accra. It specifically contributes to the e-waste management debate in two ways; first, guided by the official waste management practices, the paper interrogates how e-waste scavengers creatively adapt to and operate within various urban geographies, highlighting the challenges and their coping strategies; and secondly, it illuminates scavenging activities which has virtually assumed permanency and illustrates the local web that connects to gated communities, lower and middle-income communities and the Agbogbloshie dumpsite and slum community. Instead of trying to instrumentalise a standard model, we argue that these processes are complex, multi-dimensional and individually unique and that it is the appreciation of these complexities that policy makers can see value in this part of the disassembly process so that they might initiate more pro-poor recycling policy interventions.
Section snippets
Re-conceptualization of e-waste, informality, and industrial policy
Within the waste industry, informal stakeholders have historically been very active in solid waste collection and recovery worldwide. Earlier studies have revealed that participants work as waste collectors, collectors of recyclable materials in the streets, beaches and transfer stations or even as waste pickers on dumpsites (Osibanjo & Nnorom, 2007). The preponderance (ubiquity) of the practice is indeed, reflected in the proliferation of local names within the industry: waste pickers or
Methodology
The study focuses on how e-waste scavengers in Accra negotiate various geographies in cities and towns to enact trade. An initial challenge was accessing the number of people actively engaged in the e-waste enterprise. According to the Chairman of the Scrap Dealers Association (the umbrella association of the group at Agbogbloshie), about 3000 people have registered with it out of which about 1500 are subsisting directly on e-waste scavenging. Additionally, there are also numerous operators
Scavenging within the urban space economy
As already noted, scavenging as economic activity has a long trajectory in the Ghanaian urban economy but the realities of the times – increasing urbanization, lack of job opportunities and accumulation of poverty, particularly since the Structural Adjustment Programme (SAP) in 1983 appear to be changing the dynamics. Today, not only has the competition become keener because of the increasing number of practitioners but the practice has become the mainstream economic activity for a large
Reflections on the notion of urban mine as a pathway of managing e-waste
Our study has demonstrated that informal recycling in Accra takes multiple forms in the urban landscape. The most consistently visible form involves the collection of recyclable and re-usable materials within the low-income, unrestricted neighbourhoods. Recovering materials and re-usable items from high-income and gated communities exhumes complex challenges. Scavengers innovatively assess many factors as a single challenge, which they attempt to resolve in the complexity of their individual
Conclusion and recommendations
The study has revealed that urban mining is driving WEEE recycling into sustainable SWM and the players involved include; manufacturers, recyclers, users, waste reclaimers as well as the communities where waste recovery is done. This practice holds a wide range of potentials and opportunities. It has tremendous impact on reducing toxic waste and creating local employment. It also helps mitigate climate change by reducing greenhouse gases as recovering and recycling the precious metals consume
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Global Development Network (GDN) and the Office of Research, Innovation and Development (ORID) University of Ghana, Legon for the financial support. We are particularly grateful to Professor Marcello Balbo for his invaluable comments, and advice on the initial pilot study. The authors are thankful to the editor and the reviewer for their constructive comments that made this paper more vigorous and accurate.
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2022, Extractive Industries and SocietyCitation Excerpt :A study conducted among informal waste workers in Agbogbloshie, Ghana, found that they are at high risk of developing MSDs and work-related disabilities (Acquah et al., 2021). Despite the hazards posed by their work, e-waste workers often do not wear personal protective equipment (Oteng-Ababio et al., 2014; Acquah et al., 2019; Acquah et al., 2021; Adanu et al., 2020). High incidences of injuries and muscular pain can potentially result in abuse of pain medication, as reported in Ghana, where workers were observed drinking a mixture of tramadol and energy drinks, stating that it enabled them to work longer periods with less pain (Acquah et al., 2019).