The Guardian Environmental Division Experiences Situational Irony

Carmignac photojournalism award: Ghana and e-waste

Photojournalists Muntaka Chasant and Bénédicte Kurzen and investigative journalist Anas Aremeyaw Anas have documented the flow of electronic waste between Europe and Ghana for the 13^th edition of the Carmignac Photojournalism Award

By Muntaka Chasant, Bénédicte Kurzen, Anas Aremeyaw Anas and Fondation Carmignac

The opening paragraph of the Guardian's weekend E-Waste Ghana Story is fascinating, because it goes on to completely disprove itself in award-winning own-goalism.  The Guardian attempts to actually do what we've been calling on them to do for more than a decade - interview the diaspora and the Tech Sector in the Importing Nations, and don't focus on Basel Action Network and Greenpeace's whitemansplaining of how people buy stuff for reuse.  In so attempting, not unlike 2015's UNEP Waste Report "Waste Crime Waste Risks" (where the documentation completely obliterated the Executive Summary, see "Criminal Negligence" reviews in Discard Studies), the Guardian completely nails its own coffin.

Jerry Sekou Adara: “I had a dispute with the environment department here in Holland and we went to court. I asked them: ‘How do you come to the conclusion that these goods are waste? Who checks them?’ Deciding that something is waste is like going to the doctor. You’re told what illness you have. Don’t say a television is waste beyond repair just because you plugged it in and didn’t see any image. The judge in court was a lady and a very good judge. I said to her: ‘Look, this laptop is not waste when it’s on your table, but it is waste when in African hands.’” She knew I was telling the truth. The economy is good for the people here – they don’t suffer – and what they think of as waste here, somebody will use in Africa.”