The Digital Dump : Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa
(23 minutes) Nigeria/USA
Director: Jim Puckett
Producer: Carol Geertsema
Description:
The Digital Dump: Exporting High-Tech Re-use and Abuse to Africa exposes the ugly underbelly of an escalating global trade in toxic, obsolete, discarded computers and other e-scrap collected in North America and Europe, which is sent to developing countries by waste brokers and so-called recyclers. In Lagos, while there is a legitimately robust market and some have the ability to repair and refurbish old electronic equipment including computers, monitors, TVs and cell phones, the local experts complain that of the estimated 500 40-foot containers shipped to Lagos each month, as much as 75% of the imports are junk and are not economically repairable or marketable. Consequently, this e-waste, which is legally a hazardous waste, is discarded and routinely burned in another cyber-age nightmare now landing on the shores of developing countries.
Biography:
Jim Puckett has been a toxics activist for the past seventeen years. In the past, he served as Greenpeace International's Toxics Director and before that, as co-coordinator of Greenpeace's Toxic Trade campaign, both posts being based in Amsterdam, Netherlands. The Greenpeace Toxic Trade Campaign was instrumental in achieving the Basel Ban as well as numerous regional waste trade bans. He recently left Greenpeace to return to Seattle to help found Earth Economics and the Basel Action Network. He has traveled extensively researching, writing and campaigning against toxic trade.
Contact information:
Yuka Takamiya
Basel Action Network
122 S. Jackson Street, Suite 320
Seattle, WA 98104
E-mail: yuka@seanet.com
Web site: www.ban.org |
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