Roughly 6,000 people dismantle, recycle and burn old electronics at Agbogbloshie, the sprawling open-air scrapyard next to a lagoon and a growing informal settlement in Accra, Ghana. A new study published in Nature Sustainability by researchers Patrick Cobbinah, Dimitrios Gounaridis and colleagues documents what they term an "informal paradox": workers must expose themselves and their communities to toxic pollution in order to secure short-term livelihood gains.

The site processes a share of the roughly 62 million tonnes of e-waste the world generates each year, according to WHO figures. Over 80% of global e-waste is landfilled or processed informally by workers without health and safety protections or government oversight, per UN Environment Programme data. Much of that material is shipped to West African countries, where copper and aluminium are recovered and lithium- and cobalt-bearing batteries are recycled — often through open burning and uncontrolled acid leaching.

The material stream, and who captures its value

The exact value of minerals fed back into the global supply chain from Agbogbloshie is unknown. What is documented is that informal workers sell recovered copper to exporters at prices well below international market rates, according to research cited in the study. Global e-waste stocks are estimated to be worth US$65 billion, yet many e-waste workers earn less than US$1.25 a day.

The health costs of that price gap are measurable. Open burning of electronics has produced extreme exposure to particulate matter 2.5. Workers at Agbogbloshie breathe it in at concentrations five times higher than World Health Organization safety standards, raising the risk of heart attacks, cancer and nervous system damage. Toxic dust spreads across nearby settlements and the wider city of Accra, and the site's soil and water are highly contaminated with heavy metals, with effects spilling over to a nearby produce market and the lagoon.

The researchers analysed 20 years of satellite data and interviewed 55 community members and city experts. Between 2000 and 2020, PM2.5 concentrations around Agbogbloshie increased dramatically while the population of nearby informal settlements steadily grew — meaning more people breathed the toxic soot. Migrants arrive from rural areas to escape famine, conflict and worsening farming conditions linked to climate change. For many, e-waste processing is the only available income.

Workers know the risks. As one told the researchers: "The hunter does not fear guns, the same way we don't fear the weapon we work with."

Regulatory record: ratified, but weakly enforced

Ghana has ratified both international conventions that regulate e-waste — the Basel Convention framework and the Bamako Convention — and passed a national e-waste management law in 2016. Enforcement remains weak and, at times, actively harmful. The government has carried out hostile evictions and housing demolitions at the dumpsite, including a violent demolition of Agbogbloshie, which has not reduced recycling activity but has made workers' lives more precarious.

The study situates Agbogbloshie within a global pattern. Some 61% of the world's workforce is informally employed, according to the ILO. Wealthy countries consume the recovered copper and aluminium while some of the world's most vulnerable people absorb the health and environmental costs of recovering them.

The intervention menu

The researchers set out concrete measures. The Accra Metropolitan Assembly should end home demolitions and evictions and instead invest in the resource-sharing structures residents already operate. That includes providing safer equipment — mechanised wire-stripping machines to eliminate burning, plus protective gear — and ensuring workers earn fair wages for using safer methods.

They also call for transparency at the point of sale: new regulations compelling large-scale scrap dealers to officially record the weight of material they buy and pay a publicly accessible market rate. That single change would directly address the below-market pricing that currently transfers value from Accra's informal recyclers to exporters.

Additional measures include working with workers and community members to establish reliable clean water sources, limit burning and reduce acid use in processing.

The study's core argument for the trade is economic as well as ethical: responsibly managed in the interests of local communities, recycling could lift thousands of people out of poverty and contribute to a genuinely sustainable circular economy. Guaranteeing basic human and labour rights, the authors write, must be a non-negotiable foundation of that economy.

What happens next turns on enforcement. Ghana has the legal instruments on the books — two ratified conventions and a 2016 statute. Whether regulators move to mandate weighbridge-level transaction transparency and fund mechanised wire-stripping capacity, rather than repeat demolitions, will determine whether a US$65 billion global material stream stops being extracted from Accra at US$1.25 a day.