Breathing Poison: Toxic smoke from Agbogbloshie e-waste burning still making workers sick

By Prince Owusu Asiedu

Smoke from burning electronic waste at Agbogbloshie in Accra is filling the air with toxic chemicals, and researchers have long said the harmful effects are already getting into people’s bodies — making them sick and, in some cases, killing them.

It has been nearly two decades since clear evidence of direct human exposure to e-waste contaminants was found among workers at Agbogbloshie. In a 2012 study, urine samples from 20 male e-waste workers aged between 15 and 42 found significantly higher levels of iron, the flame-retardant antimony, and lead in the urine of the e-waste workers.

“The findings suggest that the workers were absorbing these metals through their work, potentially by inhaling fumes and coming into contact with burnt metals and ash,” said Dr. Kwadwo Ansong, acting director of the Water Research Institute of Ghana’s Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, the national body for applied scientific research, who led the study.

Agbogbloshie e-waste site has been a growing problem for governments and locals for decades.

Ghanaians discard old televisions, refrigerators, computers, mobile phones, air conditioners and other electrical appliances. Some of these items enter the informal recycling system, where scrap dealers dismantle equipment and recover valuable materials such as copper and aluminium.

Ghana has also received large quantities of used electrical and electronic equipment from abroad in return for payment. While some products are still functional and are sold as second-hand goods, others are destined for Ghana’s scrap heaps, making rich countries’ waste Ghanaians’ problem.

The second-hand market provides relatively affordable appliances and creates income for traders, collectors, dismantlers and scrap dealers. But informal recycling involves open burning, which releases airborne contaminants.

The levels of toxins found in urine samples show how bad the impact is. Toxins in bodily fluids show they have spread throughout people’s organs through the bloodstream, typical of prolonged exposure. That can lead to profound health effects and diseases that are among Ghana’s fast-growing burden of hypertension, diabetes, stroke and cancer.

For many workers, the danger to their lives has already become clear. 35-year-old scrap dealer Musah Abdulai said he has worked in the scrap business for about 15 years. In July this year, his blood pressure skyrocketed.

“I have been handling materials at the site and inhaling smoke from burning e-waste every day,” he said in Twi. “I became seriously ill and had to be hospitalised.”

Doctors told him his exposure to toxic smoke at the scrap yard was responsible.

“They asked me whether I smoked cigarettes. I told them I don’t. They said the toxic smoke was the cause,” he said.

Abdulai spent GH¢3,000 (US$263) he did not have on treatment.

More evidence of the toll from toxic e-waste at the site came from blood and breast milk samples taken from e-waste workers and sellers, including mothers who attended Ridge Hospital and Tema Hospital.

“According to the tests, we found the presence of chemicals Dioxins, Furans, polychlorinated Biphenyls,” said Pennante Bruce-Vanderpuije, a researcher at the Water Research Institute of Ghana’s Council, in studies published in 2019 and 2020.

She warned that exposure may extend beyond e-waste workers because contaminated air, water, soil and food could affect people living in surrounding communities. In addition to causing harm to the mothers, she warned about the risk to the developing organs and brains of babies from ingesting the contaminated breast milk.

But she urged mothers not to stop breastfeeding because of the findings. “The benefits of breast milk remain greater than the risks posed by the detected chemicals. We should not discourage breastfeeding.”

Instead, researchers said government must act fast to clean up the site more comprehensively than it has in the past.

Agbogbloshie is one of the worst locations for air pollution in Accra. With one of Africa’s fastest-growing populations, people are driving up air pollution as they demand more transport, consume more transported goods, and burn more household waste.

Public health data has shown a rise in a range of chronic illnesses linked to air pollution. Dr Louisa Ademki Matey, Metropolitan Director of the Ghana Health Service, says respiratory illness was the number one reason for Out-Patient Department attendance from 2022 to 2024.

“We attribute it to pollutants from open burning and dust particles,” Dr. Matey said in an interview. “This pollution can lead to conditions such as pneumonia, heart attack, stroke, and worsen people with chronic conditions. Pregnant women can have miscarriages and premature births with babies because it affects the organs very badly.”

Government has been working for the last five years to combat the Agbogbloshie air pollution crisis. In 2021, the government demolished the Agbogbloshie scrapyard as part of a redevelopment exercise. But scrap dealers returned to parts of the area. In 2025, Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed, then Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, warned scrap dealers against burning e-waste.

The current Environmental Protection Authority, working with environment advocates Green Advocacy Ghana and Pure Earth, has tried giving scrap dealers wire-stripping machines to save them from burning the plastic that encases copper in the wires they are scrapping.

“But they felt it was time-consuming, so they went back to burning copper with fire,” said Prof. Michael Ayamga-Adongo, Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Authority. “We are also buying copper directly from them and placing e-waste collection containers at malls for people to drop collapsed gadgets.”

Dr. Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, Minister for Environment, Science and Technology, has urged the Authority to prosecute polluters.

“Nobody should be compromised. EPA must collaborate with other stakeholders to improve their operations to reduce pollution in any form in the country,” she said in an interview following her appointment as minister.

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly and other assemblies have intensified education on open burning at Agbogbloshie and its environs, with some success.

“We have been engaging drivers, traders and scrap dealers about the dangers to their health,” said Florence Kuukyi, Director of the Metro Health Department. She provided data from air quality monitoring showing that air pollution in Agbogbloshie had reduced between July 2025 and 2025.

But as efforts to clean the site intensify, for many here, the risk to their livelihood is the more immediate danger than their health.

Fuseni Fatawu, a trader who buys condemned phones, laptops and other electronic equipment, said exposure to smoke has become part of his daily working environment.

“I frequently suffer from headaches and coughs,” he said in Twi. He has been diagnosed with high blood pressure and diabetes. He seeks treatment at the hospital regularly, “but I continue working here because this trade is how I feed my family.”

He is one of many who would like government help to move away from here and build a business somewhere safe. Without it, he said, he has no choice but to continue to see his health decline.

This story was a collaboration with New Narratives as part of the Clean Air Ghana Reporting Project. Funding was provided by the Clean Air Fund, which had no say in the story’s content.