The great news is that -- compared to previous articles (via BBC, The Atlantic, The Guardian, NPR, NY Times, Washington Post, Wired, etc.) -- the web documentary appearing yesterday on Al Jazeera and internazionale by young Italian reporters Jacopo Ottaviani and Isacco Chiaf, "E-waste Republic"*, is much more sophisticated. It allows many other (English-speaking) voices to come forward and describe the nuance of a scrap problem in an African city.
* edited redirect to Der Spiegel 2022.09.27
* edited redirect to Der Spiegel 2022.09.27
This documentary is far ahead of the pack in documenting the complex pieces of the electronic reuse and scrap markets in Africa. And they hit the nail on the head by stating that demolishing Agbogbloshie will make the problem worse.
Kudos to Ottaviani for interviewing second hand dealers and repair shops, and giving time to yours truly (on behalf of WR3A / Fair Trade Recycling). They give author Adam Minter [whose own accounts of Agbogbloshie are frankly more factual] almost as much screen time as Mike Anane. There are data and statistics, and the documentary stands apart from the lie that boycotting Africa's Geeks will somehow make wire burning juveniles "go away". I thank and respect Ottaviani and Chiaf for taking the hours and hours to get a "whole story" perspective.
What the documentary fails to do, sadly, is to correct the proportion distortion. or the myth that import for repair is "illegal". Like Kyle Wiens piece @Wired, Ottaviani recognizes the demolition of the slum is bad - but alsocontinues to make the story about westerners' stuff. This continues the central conceit that Agbogbloshie's problems somehow revolve significantly around "imported e-waste".
The focus on e-waste exports in sea containers is the Mystery of Al Capone's vault, 29 years after.
[ postscript: This was a tricky blog to write, as I respect Jacopo and Isacco and value the effort to interview #geeksofcolor and tell a nuanced account. But it also perpetuates definitions of #ewaste that include reuse and repair, and false testimony about volumes and timelines of simply disposed waste, and honestly it does represent another example of photojournalism's need for exotic hooks. ]
