Your old electronics are poisoning people at this toxic dump in Ghana

Getty Images / WIRED Every weekday, Ibrahim wakes up at six in the morning. Ibrahim is working as a “burner boy” – the name given to the young boys and men who trawl through piles of electronic waste in Agbogbloshie, a vast dump near the centre of Ghana’s capital, Accra, looking for circuit boards and wires to burn. Like the other burner boys he works with, Ibrahim migrated from north Ghana after dropping out of school and struggling to find work. When the skies are clear, Ibrahim and the other burners set fire to the e-waste – melting away the plastic insulation around wires or in circuit boards to salvage the metal. It’s a fraction of the living wage estimate for a person in Ghana – around £4 per day – but it is one of the more lucrative jobs in Agbogbloshie and Old Fadama.