Hi everyone. We're here today with Zoe Laskas, a doctoral student in the Department of Epidemiology. Zoe is an expert in occupational and environmental health and she's going to be talking to us today about her dissertation work on e-waste workers in Ghana. So Zoe, for your dissertation, you're studying e-waste facilities in Ghana. Can you tell us more about what e-waste is and why it ends up in Ghana? Sure. So we all know what e-waste is. Whether or not you think you do, you have some. E-waste is the electronic or electrical equipment that is disposive without intent for further use. So we're talking about all your cell phones, laptops, refrigerators, irons, basically anything you can plug in. It happens to be the fastest growing municipal waste stream of all of them. So we're producing a lot of electronic waste around the world. More and more, also, as lifespans gets shorter and low and middle-income countries have a higher demand. So the thing with e-waste is we don't have a really good way of recycling it, although we really want to recycle it because it contains a lot of valuable metals like gold, and silver, and palladium, things that we would otherwise have to mine in environmental mining, which can be very costly. So although electronics have a lot of really valuable metals, they also have a lot of really hazardous ones. So when we recycle it, it becomes tricky, so they're technically, electronics that you throw away or hazardous waste. What are some of the hazardous metals that are in there? So some of the hazardous components, there are a lot of heavy metals like lead, cadmium, chromium, mercury, and then there's also a lot of organic pollutants like dioxins, and PCBs, and flame retardants. So it's a toxic mixture of hazardous components, but then also really valuable ones. So recycling in a country like the United States or in Europe, there are a lot of regulations that their factories have to meet in order to recycle it and keep the workers safe, and those are very expensive to upkeep. Workers have to wear a lot of equipment, there are a lot of regulations that they have to meet. So sometimes it's easier to just send it away and let somebody else to recycle it. So this trend has happened in which a lot of the electronic waste it's generated in the United States or in Europe or in Australia tends to leave the borders and travel overseas to low and middle-income countries. Ghana and Nigeria and West Africa are real hot spots for importing electronic waste. One thing in one of those countries, there are fewer regulations on how to recycle it, or none at all, basically, none that are enforced are very few. On top of that, there's also a demand for cheap electronics in low and middle-income countries, so they're likely to take them in. Then it's also a source of employment for people in Ghana. For instance, they have a job then of recycling electronics, but it's not done in a safe manner. So in the US, for example, does all e-waste end up going overseas? Do some of it end up just in landfills in the US? Yes. So not all of it goes overseas. Some of it does get recycled in house, I would say like in the United States in what we would call a formal recycling facility. Some gets lost in the municipal waste stream. I don't know what to do with my e-waste and I study e-waste. We just put it on a box in our basement figuring one day we'll take it to the recycling center. Yeah, nobody really knows, or you bring it to an e-waste recycling collection site, but even that can potentially go overseas. I would say that it is illegal to ship electronic. It's illegal? It's illegal. So there's a ban on the transboundary trade of hazardous waste. The problem is that there's a loophole in which a electronic that might still have some life to it is sent as a donation or as a end-of-life product, but someone can still use for six months or so. So it gets shipped in containers and even though it's technically not allowed. So you said even things like toasters are considered e-waste, so I didn't know that and if I have a toaster that's on its last legs right now and I would probably just throw it in the trash. So that ends up in a landfill in the US and is there anything dangerous about that? It's a good question. So I'm not so sure how hazardous toasters are, their and what valuable components they might have. Probably none. They might have some heating elements and some copper. So if you throw it in your trash, someone might sort it out. But if it ended up in the landfill, eventually, those metals would end up just in the environment and leach out into the soil and potentially the water and so on. Okay. So I should not throw my toaster [inaudible] I would have to check exactly what you're supposed to do with the toaster, but probably not. Okay. That's good to know. So you've started talking about this a little bit, about the idea that there's hazardous chemicals in this e-waste, but could you talk a little more about the potential health consequences of e-waste recycling for the workers themselves who are working in these facilities and for other people who live in the communities where these facilities are located? Sure. So it's a very good question, also really hard one to answer because there's so many different chemicals in e-waste. As I mentioned, some of the metals and also some of the organic pollutants. So each of them have their own health consequences that they may lead to or that we know they lead to. For instance, we know lead targets the central nervous system and is particularly dangerous for children in their development. Some of the other pollutants are carcinogens. There are others that target the cardiovascular system, the respiratory system. Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons are known to cause cancer, for instance, lung cancer. Then there's also liver cancer, kidney cancer. So it really depends on which pollutant, it's pathway, and how much is ingested in the body and for how much time. So when studying e-waste, it's tricky because there's this whole mixture also, and we don't necessarily know what health consequences are going to arise due to the mixture of chemicals. But basically, I mean, you name it, it's probably associated with one of the chemicals in electronic waste. So can you talk a little bit about how they get the valuable components out of the e-waste? Sure. So there are health effects for the environment, there are health effects for the workers, and then also for the community. So for the workers, they typically in an informal electronic waste recycling site, like in Ghana, a famous one is the Agbogloshie site, and that's where my research is, which is in the capital city, Accra in Ghana. So what workers there typically do is they use very rudimentary methods. They primarily dismantling of the electronics using a hammer and chisel, where they're literally breaking it apart to eliminate the unwanted parts like the plastics, most of the plastics, and then pull out the copper. Then the other thing that they do, typically, is they will burn the electronics to melt away the plastic and then pull out the remaining metal from the ash. What kinds of chemicals are emitted in the process of burning the plastic? So it's a good question. I should mention that the workers are not wearing any personal protective equipment. Often not even gloves or boots, so there's also a lot of cuts and lacerations and things like that. So when they're burning the electronics, first, all the chemicals that are already contained within the electronics are released, but then there are new ones that are generated through the process of incomplete combustion because they typically do it in large surface fires that don't get hot enough or complete combustion, so then new pollutants are generated, one of which particulate matter, which is what I study, also will produce new dioxins and PAHs, so different persistent organic pollutants. So the workers who are doing the work, they can either ingest things that come. If it's on their hands and they eat something, that would be hand-to-mouth contact. They can breathe in the pollutants, but then also, so if you think about having these big fires in the capital city, you have then plumes of smoke that are carrying heavy metals and flame retardants and a whole mix and particulate matter across where the workers are working and then right into the community. So people live nearby these facilities? Yes. Yeah. So the community level impact is one that has been hard to study, but it's, I guess there's a strong hypothesis that the people in the community are coming into contact with the same pollutants that the workers are because the worksite is adjacent actually to a large food market. So some of the particulate matter can settle onto the food that gets then distributed around the capital. There are schools nearby, so children are also going to be impacted, and their women and children are going to be the most vulnerable community members. So in terms of the workforce, is it primarily men or is it men and women who work in these facilities? So that's also a great question. On this side in Ghana, in terms of doing the actual electronic waste recycling, it's all men. In other sites around the world, like in Mexico, there are also women who perform the work, and in Thailand, in China. But then I should say that there are women that also are on the work site who are selling food and water to the workers, so they're working, not necessarily on e-waste, but they're directly exposed.
