In 2008 the U.S. generated 3.16 million tons of e‐waste. Of this amount, only 430,000 tons, or 13.6%, was recycled. The rest was trashed – in landfills or incinerators. In Europe it's the same thing. In Germany for example, 155,000 tones of electronic waste are moved each year, despite legal prohibitions to countries such as India, China and Ghana, where children search the garbage for recyclables. Often the waste is labeled as secondhand or even development aid and circumvents the prohibitions and controls in the EU countries. Only 20 to 30 percent of goods are still functional, the rest is toxic waste that ends up in landfill sites in Ghana.
Sodom and Gomorrah is called the slum and the adjacent electrical room in Accra (in the district Agbogbloshie), Ghana's capital. There, mostly children dismantle the toxic electrical appliances without any safety precautions. Children, who are sometimes only 6 years old, are involved in the dangerous recovery of the materials.
