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Ghana: Dumping ground for used gadgets

At one of the many busy roadside shops in the capital, Accra, John Nuagbe displays the used, rusty and mostly broken electrical gadgets he recently imported from the USA.

23 Jul 2008

Takoradi market in Accra: Everything is on sale, including imported scrap electronics. Photo: IRIN

Old TV sets, refrigerators, computers, fans, cookers - even blenders and electric irons. If it is used and electrical, it is likely he has one.

“Business is good, I just arrange with my business partners in the USA and the goods are shipped to me. They sell like hot cakes,” he explained.

The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 2005 between 1,5 and 1,9m tonnes of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other electrical equipment were discarded in the USA.

Read the full article here.