Rotting eggs: Europe's electronic waste poisons Ghana's food chain

General News of Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Source: theguardian.com

2019-04-24

Some of the most dangerous chemicals on Earth enter the food chain in Ghana from illegally scrapped electronic waste from Europe.

According to a new report from two environmental groups monitoring the disposal of electronic waste, chicken eggs from the Agbogbloshie slum in Accra, Ghana's capital, where residents break down their garbage to recover metals, contain dangerous levels of dioxins and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), among other harmful substances.

Researchers from the two groups, Ipen and Basel Action Network, analyzed eggs laid by free-roaming chickens that feed in Agbogbloshie, home to about 80,000 people who survive mainly by collecting and selling copper and copper cables. other metals from electronic waste.

The analysis revealed that an adult eating only one egg in the scrap yard and slum of Agbogbloshie would exceed 220 times the limits set by the European Safety Authority. foods for chlorinated dioxins. Other toxic chemicals were present at equally disturbing concentrations, including PCBs and flame retardants. Dioxins, in particular, are extremely damaging even at low concentrations.

The report again highlighted the problems of regulating the transfer of toxic waste from Europe to African countries, including Ghana, Tanzania and Nigeria, which has led to appeals for stricter regulation of hazardous waste under the current Stockholm Convention.

The egg analysis was carried out by the Basel Action Network, which has equipped the European waste with observers and followed them in Ghana and other countries.

Activists called for stricter enforcement of the rules governing the transfer of waste containing toxic chemicals, in order to prevent them from ending up in countries without the necessary infrastructure to dispose of them. all security.

"Europe must fight against its toxic electronic waste, instead of sending it to developing countries, such as Ghana, where dangerous chemicals contaminate people (especially the most vulnerable) and the environment, because poor management and existing practices in terms of indiscriminate disposal, "said Sam Adu-Kumi of Ghana's Environmental Protection Agency, in response to the findings.

"African countries should no longer be used as a dumping ground for e-waste because we do not have the technological capacity to process waste containing high levels of persistent organic pollutants."

Jindrich Petrlik, lead author of the report and member of the working group on dioxin, PCBs and Ipen waste, said: "Dioxins are extremely toxic in very small quantities; there is a problem when these substances are identified even at tenth of the pictograms. However, our sampling revealed levels measured in very large quantities, indicating [that] large quantities of these highly toxic and unregulated chemicals arrive in Africa as e-waste and enter the food chain. "