Audio Transcript Auto-generated
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Hi, my name is Cheyenne Marlowe and I'll be presenting on Abu Gosh.
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She located in Accra Ghana.
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This is the structure of the presentation will be talking about
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um what abu Gosh she is and will be discussing figure
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12 and three there and then we'll go into demographics Abu
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Gosh she which will be represented by a figure four.
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And then lastly health implications will be briefly touched,
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john supported by health figure five.
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Okay,
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so Abu Gosh,
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she is also known as old fandom a scrapyard and it's located as I said in Accra Ghana.
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It is the largest e dump site in the world and it is a site where
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members of the informal sector process electronic waste
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and scrap metals using unsafe treatment methods such as
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um open burning of candles, I'm sorry,
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cables and foams and spilling of hazardous materials.
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Um and this of course causes a significant amount
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of environmental pollution not only at this site but
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downstream from the river, which will be shown.
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A map will be shown um shortly and also health risks to those operating
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the site due to persistent organic pollutants
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which will be discussed a little later.
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So to get a sense of what Abahachi looks like. These are a couple of photographs
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and the last one concerning that you can see
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their livestock eating from the waist which of course
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um is not
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great as it causes another pathway for exposure.
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So not only is you waste a problem in Accra Ghana
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specifically abu Gosh in Ghana.
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Um It is a problem globally. The U. N. Anticipates that
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E waste from 2019 to 2050 will double which would mean that there would be 100 million
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tons of E waste created every single year as
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opposed to the 50 million generated in 2019.
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Not only that
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the U. N. Also
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stated that only 20% of the waste is thought to be recycled appropriately and
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the rest ends up in landfills or is disposed of by informal workers like those
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in Abahachi.
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So as I said this is the map of Ab Gashi here. You can see that they there is a
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market adjacent to the e waste areas
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because she actually started out as a yam site where much
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that's why most people were going there.
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Um and then gradually turned into e waste site.
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As I mentioned, you can see the river routes which
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um the waist typically and can be pulled into the river and pulled
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downstream as well as any runoff from the waist due to rain or other
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um method.
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Um So this is a map and we can also note that the bathrooms are next to the
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um food stations
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again contributing to contamination.
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Um and disease.
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This figure illustrates just how difficult it is to get a
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true sense of how much e waste is generated and collected
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In Ghana and also
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recycled in the informal sector as seen in Row two.
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Um You can also note that
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there are various methods for collecting this
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information which of course will yield different
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metrics surrounding the waste generated here.
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Next we'll talk about the demographics of the impacted area being Abahachi.
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So the workers are predominantly from the northern regions of Ghana and
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other countries such as Togo Benign and Nigeria and E waste.
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And scrap workers are typically male averaging 21 years old.
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Women are also on site and they typically sell water and food.
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So thinking back to the map of Abu Gosh, she that we saw in previous slides.
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Um these statistics are quite troubling being that 96.6% of males sleep
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near Abu Gashi and 81.8% of female sleep near Abu Gashi,
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which demonstrates
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little to no separation between agasshi and the
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um
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numerous exposures
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at that site,
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which then leads us to the next section which speaks about
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potential health implications of working and living in abu Gosh.
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E.
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So of course there's
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a very large probability of waterborne diseases and insect vectors um
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largely due to the
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the amount of water that are at Alba Gashi prior to becoming an E waste,
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that Alban gashi was actually a swampland.
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So that definitely exacerbates the issue of
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waterborne diseases and insect vectors and sickness caused
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through those pathways.
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Secondly, we also have of course physical
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um
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physical risk factors and threats such as fire, fire hazards.
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Um Lastly we have inadequate water supply and sanitation
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issues as we saw in the map earlier,
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the bathrooms are near the food and their bathrooms are
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near their water sources and thus create inadequate water. And um
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again, going back to waterborne diseases as well,
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So figure five talks about the physical risk factors
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um that can cause injury experienced among the waste workers.
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Therefore,
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there are four groups of e waste workers identified
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by the literature um that we have collectors,
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sorters dismantles and burners,
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and each of the colors represent a different
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type of injury experienced among these groups,
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such as cuts, abrasions and burns.
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Um we can see here that dismantle ear's face the highest amount
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of
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um injury across
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type of injury.
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Um
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Yes, and moving on,
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so to summarize the waste is a growing problem globally.
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And Omega,
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she is the world's largest e waste dump and thousands
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of workers unsafely disposed of the waste at this site,
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causing significant negative health outcomes,
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such as exposure to contaminated soil, air and physical threats.
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Two,
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they're themselves
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and here are the references for the presentation and thank you