A boy places another piece of 'e-waste' on a burning pile of electronics in Agbogbloshie, Accra, Ghana, in 2008.
We think of our cell phones and laptops as clean technology, but they contain trace amounts of valuable metals like copper and gold. And when junked electronics are processed by the very poor, out in the open, they can lead to dangerous levels of pollution. That’s what happens at the Agbogbloshie dump site outside Accra, the capital of Ghana. Sheathed cables are burnt in the open to get at the copper material inside, often using Styrofoam packaging as fuel. Those cables contain heavy metals like lead, which can migrate from the smoke into the soil. Samples taken from around Agbogbloshie indicate lead levels as high as 18,125 parts per million—as much as 45 times higher than U.S. standards. As many as 250,000 Ghanaians might be at risk.