The programmed obsolescence causes a constant flow of waste that ends in third world countries like Ghana in Africa. We are talking about end of life computers, end of life television sets, which nobody wants in the developed countries. An international treaty prohibits the sending of electronic waste to the third world.
But the merchants use a simple trick, declaring them second-hand products. More than 80% of the electronic waste that reaches Ghana cannot be repaired and end up abandoned in greenhouses throughout the country. river called the river you know that meandered its way through this area it was steaming in the past they have so much fish we actually attended a school not very far away from here so we can play football and hang around around the river the fishermen would organize both rides I remember very well but now is all finished is all gone and that makes me really really sad and it makes me angry today here there are no children playing after class in their place young poor families come to look for junk burn the plastic case of the cables to obtain the metal metal they carry inside.
The smallest children look for the remains to find any small piece of metal that the elderly have forgotten. The people behind the shipments have said that, well, we're trying to bridge the digital divide between Europe, America, and then the rest of Africa and Ghana, of course. But the reality is that these computers that are sent here simply do not work. There's no point in receiving electronic waste when you cannot deal with it, more so when you did not produce it and your country is being used as a world's trash bin. The trash that for so long in the industrial age has been hidden from view is now coming into our lives and we can actually no longer easily avoid it.
The waste economy is reaching its last legs because there's... don't physically have anywhere else to put the waste. I think in the course of time we've come to realize that the planet that we're living on cannot sustain that forever.
There's a limit to natural resources and there's a limit to energy resources that we have. Thank you. Posterity will never forgive us. Posterity will suddenly find out about the throw-away attitudes, the throw-away lifestyles of people in the advanced countries. People from all over the world have begun to act against the programmed obsolescence.
Mike Anane has been fighting since the end of the chain. He has begun by collecting information. This is where I keep the e-waste that have asset tags or property tags. This says Amu Center, Northwest, Zeeland.
It's from Denmark. This is from Germany. Sent here simply to be dumped.
Westminster College. Apple. Apple should know better.
It's a company that claims to be so green. There's a lot of Apple products that are being dumped here. I have a database that contains the asset tax, the contact addresses, telephone numbers of the companies that owned the electronic goods that have been dumped in Ghana.
Mike plans to convert this information into evidence for a complaint before a court. We need to take some action, some punitive measure. We need to sue people so they stop dumping e-waste in Ghana.