Convenor(s)
Lopes dos Santos Kaue / University of Sao Paulo
Since the early years of this century, many African cities have received a significant amount of electronic waste (like computers, copiers and televisions) disposed by developed countries, mainly in North America and Europe.
Located on the outskirts of large cities – in Senegal, Benin, Ivory Coast, Ghana, Liberia, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa – these e-waste dumps are characterized by a labor force, operating under extremely harsh conditions, that aims to find recoverable electronic equipment that can be sold at local markets. Generally, the devices that cannot be recovered are burned in order to extract certain minerals, such as copper and gold. This process is responsible for the rise of respiratory diseases among workers and the pollution of water bodies, soil and air. Besides the health and environmental problems created at the e-waste dumping grounds, it is important to emphasize that trade in e-waste to developing countries is illegal under the Basel Convention. In this panel, we aim to analyze the urban economy that develops in African cities from these e-waste activities, while especially considering the effects of the so called “globalization process” in Africa.
Lixo electrônico e a economia urbana: os limites da globalização em África
Desde os primeiros anos desse século, muitas cidades africanas receberam uma significativa quantidade de lixo eletrônico (computadores, máquinas copiadores, televisões) que foram descartados pelos países desenvolvidos, sobretudo na América do Norte e na Europa.
Localizado nas periferias de grandes cidades – no Senegal, Benin, Costa do Marfim, Gana, Libéria, Egito, Quênia e África do Sul – os lixões de lixo eletrônicos são caracterizados por possuir uma mão de obra operando sob severas condições, selecionando equipamentos com potencial para ser reaproveitado e vendido nos mercados locais. Muitas vezes, esses equipamentos não podem ser restaurados e são queimados, com o objetivo de obter deles alguns minerais, como cobre e ouro. Esse processo é responsável pelo crescimento de doenças respiratórias nos trabalhadores e pela poluição de corpos d’água, do solo e do ar. Além dos problemas de saúde e de meio ambiente criados nos lixões de lixo eletrônico, é importante enfatizar que o mercado de lixo eletrônico é ilegal segundo a Convenção da Basiléia. Nessa mesa, buscamos analisar a economia urbana que se desenvolve nas cidades africanas a partir do lixo eletrônico, atentando aos efeitos do chamado “processo de globalização” na África.
Grant Richard / University of Miami
The Global Transformation of Materials and the Emergence of Informal ‘Urban Mining’ in Accra, Ghana
The narrative on global shipments of used electronic devices to Africa is incomplete. Overwhelmingly, the literature focuses on end-of-life device dumping, and health and environmental hazards for local populations. Based on fieldwork in Accra, Ghana with e-waste processors, scrap recyclers and exporters, local industries and the Ghana Customs, Excise and Preventive Service officials as well as analyzing customs trade data, we document e-waste processing and the extraction, sorting and segregation of metals and the amalgamation of various content for local industries as well as export. We uncover the development of informal urban mining of valuable metals from used electronics, a phenomenon that call into question conventional spatial oppositions of city-mine, consumption-production, and waste and resource. Urban mining is an important heuristic concept for understanding Accra’s circuitry within global political economy, and this conceptualization can be deployed in policy context
s to create conditions for improving the livelihoods of informal e-waste workers in Ghana and elsewhere.
Lopes dos Santos Kauê / University of Sao Paulo
A globalização e o mapa do lixo eletrônico na África
O fluxo de lixo eletrônico dos países desenvolvidos para os países subdesenvolvidos tem se tornado cada vez mais intenso nos últimos anos. Mesmo com os esforços internacionais para conter esse fluxo – Convenção da Basiléia (1989), Bamako (1991) e Estocolmo (2001) – o lixo continua a chegar em cidades africanas etiquetados como “material de segunda mão”, com o suposto objetivo de integrar as populações de baixa renda às tecnologias informacionais. O presente artigo pretende fazer um mapeamento global desses fluxos de lixo eletrônico, levando em consideração os portos de onde partem, as rotas e os portos onde chegam e a localização dos lixões dentro das cidades africanas em questão. Além disso, buscaremos analisar o destino e as transformações pelas quais essa material passa nas economias urbanas desse continente.
Urselli Raffaele / Università degli studi di Napoli ‘L’Orinetale’
Waste in Africa: Landfills, Traffics and Second Hand Trade
The phenomenon of international trafficking of waste (not only electronic but also dangerous and special) is nowdays one of the most glaring and materially tangible contradictions of capitalism. High disposal costs and growing environmental demands determine the need, mainly for the Western world, to export the waste in the global South to contain the economic and environmental costs. Over the African continent, since the eighties, this traffic has intensified in a so violent manner to necessitate arrangements and agreements to limit the cross-border movement. However, the category of ‘waste’ has been manipulated in such a way as to transform the garbage in ‘development aid'; the second hand goods have become so constitutive of the african material cultures. In this paper I analyze the extraordinary dynamism that today lives the waste sector in the african continent through a case study on Dakar landfill. While the population and exploitation of landfills in the major African
cities spread almost entirely through the subaltern plots of the informal sector, on the other hand this ‘economy of waste’ contributes to the insertion of the continent into the international system through the raw materials trade (mainly India, China, Korea, Pakistan, Brazil) and the production of new spaces for capitalism.