West Africa: Britain's garbage dump

UK media outlets The Independent newspaper and Sky News have stories on how Britain is using West Africa is its national garbage dump. In conjunction with the advocacy group Greenpeace, the media outlets reported (as The Independent described) how:

Tons of toxic waste collected from British municipal dumps is being sent illegally to Africa in flagrant breach of this country’s obligation to ensure its rapidly growing mountain of defunct televisions, computers and gadgets are disposed of safely.

Hundreds of thousands of discarded items, which under British law must be dismantled or recycled by specialist contractors, are being packaged into cargo containers and shipped to countries such as Nigeria and Ghana, where they are stripped of their raw metals by young men and children working on poisoned waste dumps.


The Independent's investigation can be found here, while the Sky News report can be found here. An Independent editorial pointedly denounced the scandal.