Organized crime earns an increase in e-waste smuggling – BBC News in Serbian

You can see a thick pillar of smoke as rising from the agbogbloosse dump for miles away.

The air at a huge disturbance, in the west Akre, the capital Ghana, is extremely toxic.

The more you approach, the more difficult to breathe and starts to blame your eyes.

There are dozens of men, waiting for tractors to unload piles of cables before they catch fire.

Others climb to a toxic hill waste and bring on televisions, computers and parts of the washing machine, so they fell.

People pull valuable metals such as copper and gold from electronic and electric waste (e-waste), whose large part reached Ghana from rich countries.

« I don’t feel good, » says Abdula Jakub, a young worker while burning cables and plastic, and his eyes are red and tearful.

« The air you see is very polluted, and I have to work here every day, so it definitely affects your health, » he adds.

Abiba Alhasan, mother of four children, works at a nearby incineration location, sorting used plastic bottles, and toxic smoke does not save her.

« Sometimes it’s even very difficult to breathe, I feel big pressure on my chest and be very bad, » she says.

E-waste is the branch of waste in the world’s largest increase, with 62 million tons generated in 2022. years.

It is an increase of 82 percent compared to 2010, according to the United Nations (UN) report.

Behind the growth of e-waste is mainly the electronization of our societies – varying smartphones and computers to home appliances such as televisions and smart alarms to cars with built-in electronic devices, whose demand is constantly increasing.

Annual delivery of smartphones, for example, more than doubled since 2010. years.

In 2023, 1.2 billion of these devices were delivered, according to this year’s UN trade and development report.

The most recent item

The UN says only about 15 percent of world e-waste is recycled, so unscrupulous companies are looking for where to get rid of it elsewhere, often through an intermediary who then smugglers waste from the country.

Such waste is difficult to recycle due to its complex composition that includes toxic chemicals, metals, plastic and elements that cannot be easily separated and recycled.

Even developed countries do not have adequate waste management infrastructure.

UN investigators say that they noticed a significant increase in e-waste smuggling from developed countries and economies in accelerated development.

It is now an item that most often seizes, making every sixth of all types of seized waste in the world, a world customs organization said.

Officials in the Port of Naples, in Italy, they showed the BBC World Service, how the smugglers mislead and hide e-waste, for which they say it makes about 30 percent of their seizures.

They show a scan of a container who traveled to Africa, carrying a car, but when the port officials opened a container, they found the nagurant disassembled parts of vehicles and e-waste, with oil that emphasized from some of them.

« You do not pack such personal property, most of this is for waste, » says Luizi Garuto, investigator of the European Fighting Cripple Office (OLAF), which cooperates with port officials across Europe.

Sophisticated smuggling tactics

In the UK, officials say they also see an increase in smuggled e-waste.

In the port of FelixStouv, Ben Raider, the British Environmental Spokes, said often as if they were reusable, but in reality « actually burned after reaching their destination » into countries such as Ghana.

Smugglers also try to hide e-waste, blowing and mixing with other forms of plastic that is to export with the proper documentation, he says.

The previous report of the World Customs Organization showed that there was an increase of almost 700 percent in the smuggling of motor vehicles at the end of life, which is a huge source of e-waste.

But experts say such seizures and reported cases are just the tip of the iceberg.

Although there is no comprehensive global study that monitors all e-waste smuggled from the developed world, UN report shows that countries in Southeast Asia remain a common destination.

But while some of these states are trying to stop smuggling, UN investigators and activists say that more and more e-waste manage to break through to African countries.

In Malaysia, officials from May to June 2024. Salted 106 hazardous e-waste containers, according to Masudo Karimipur, a regional representative of the Office of Drug and Crime for Southeast Asia and Pacific.

But smugglers often outwit the authorities with new tactics, and governments fail quick enough to keep them up, they say UN investigators.

« When ships that wear dangerous waste, such as e-waste cannot be easily unloaded on their usual destinations, they turn off the tracking signal when they find themselves in the middle of the oceans to avoid being discovered, » says Karimapur.

« And the illegal consignment is expelled into the sea as part of the business model of organized criminal activity.

« There are too many groups and too many countries that benefit from this global criminal enterprise, » he adds.

See how artist from Nis gives new life with electronic waste

High risk chemicals

Plastic and metals in e-waste when burned or expelled can be very dangerous to human health and have negative consequences for the environment, according to the recent report of the World Health Organization.

She says that many countries are also working an informal recycling of e-waste, which means that untrained people, women and children, do that job without protective equipment and real infrastructure, exposing to toxic substances such as lead.

The International Labor Organization and the World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that millions of women and children who work in the recycling sector are threatened, and exposure during the development of fetuses and children can cause neurosurative and related neurobihevioral disorders.

Since January 2025. year, the Basel Convention will request from exporters to report all e-waste and procure permits from the recipient countries.

Investigators hope this will clog some holes in the law that smugglers use to send such waste all over the world.

There are also some countries, including a large exporter of e-waste, which did not ratify the Basel Convention, and activists say it can still be a reason to continue smuggling e-waste.

« While weengthen control, now they send trucks more and more across the border in Mexico, » says Jim Package, CEO of Basel Action Network, organizations that stand up for completing trade in toxic materials.

During that time, at the agbogbloši in the Ghana landfill, the situation is all gora every day.

Habiba says he spends almost half of the money that earns from collecting waste to drugs to cope with the health condition resulting from work on the landfill.

« But I’m still here because this is the only way of surviving for me and my family. »

The Ghana Tax Administration and the Ministry of Environment did not answer our numerous requests for comment.

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