Photojournalists and an investigative writer documented the flow of electronic waste between Europe and Ghana
Zongo Lane, crowded with hundreds of small stalls dealing in all types of electronics in Accra, Ghana. Photograph: Bénédicte Kurzen/Fondation Carmignac
It was against this backdrop that the investigation by Anas Aremeyaw Anas and photojournalists Muntaka Chasant and Bénédicte Kurzen began. Departing from the dramatic imagery often used by the media to portrayas “the dustbin of the world”, they spent a year documenting this ambiguous and complex exchange, which is a crucial economic opportunity for thousands of people in Ghana but has a considerable human and environmental impact.
In the UK, Bénédicte Kurzen documented Sam Osei’s yard in Rainham, Kent. The yard serves as a storage area, shipping agency and a haulage, loading and container delivery service to the port. It is also an informal electronics marketplace.“It was about asking: ‘Where does the e-waste go? Where does it come from?’ This is what brought us undercover in the companies that recycle. First of all, you want to see the individual who goes through the long process of getting rid of this waste.
Sam Osei: “I arrived in the UK in 1986, aged 17, to study. While running a cleaning company, I created this business in 2013. I cleaned at night, and by day worked for a shipping company. Africans are always shipping things. I looked into the business side of it and a friend showed me what to do. I didn’t even finish my degree, and dropped out two years later. A lot of Ghanaians went bankrupt with the weakening of the national currency, which jumped from 8 cedis to 18 cedis to the pound.
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