I Was Looking for Africa’s Biggest Electronics Dump but Found a Community of Creators Instead

Osman, 65, in his workshop, where for the past 32 years he has melted aluminum cans to make make cooking pots for local women.

It is known as Africa’s biggest e-waste dumping site, a place where the outdated, discarded electronics from the West come to die. Locals dissect their components and sell them on to third parties, mainly from China and Nigeria. Yet Agbogbloshie, a sprawling slum in the center of the Ghanaian capital Accra, is much more than that.