E-Waste dumpsters in Ghana

[sixty]

So I was watching this documentary about dumpsters in Ghana where most of Europe's and America's electronic waste ends up. As a keyboard nut I could not help but notice:






Now the worst part about this is that these guys wack all this shit to pieces and then breathe in toxic fumes while they burn everything to extract the copper parts. This is the only thing they are after, because they then sell the copper back to the west for a reward of about two Euros per day.



Don't get me wrong, I don't feel sorry about the keyboards. Looking at the recent eBay prices and the permanently increasing interest for retro keyboards (where some people go as far as paying $400 for a single set of 15 year old keycaps!), I could not help but cringe a bit and think to myself "If only someone would tell them that there is so much more to make". Of course nothing of this could ever realistically work out, so don't take this post too serious. I just found it a sad irony.

[ripster]

Here today, Ghana tomorrow.

[7bit]

Someone must tell them!

They could be rich people if they only knew what they've got!

This world is really sick! They burn valuable $50 keyboards to get $2 of worthless copper!

[Magna224]

They make me feel poor in a way.

[igro]

Don't tell 'em, they'll oversaturate the market.

[Ascaii]

we need to find us an interpreter, a bus, and a container to ship them back home.
Getting the cherries back into germany would even be possible without having to pay the silly 19% Einfuhrzoll.

Hmm my old church has a mission in ghana, i wonder if theyre close to this place.

inb4 "GO ASCAII BECOME A MISSIONARY IN GHANA AND RETURN WITH TWO CONTAINERS FULL KEYBOARDS"


oh and sixty, do you have a link to watch that documentary? id be interested in seeing it.

[Matuka]

They've probably got more mechanical keyboards than Germany, Japan and America combined. ((

[sordna]

This is a humanitarian disaster. Why doesn't the UN intervene to stop these atrocities ???

[Input Nirvana]

Interesting and ironic.

In a very similar vein, my business supplies and installs new products in remodeled public buildings (schools, hospitals, police stations, etc.). I pay a few dollars every year to have the old products hauled away, usually to dumps. These products are worth thousands of dollars. I just can't do it all, I wish I could.

[webwit]

My heart bleeds. I wonder if the Amsterdam Ghanaian community can be of help. They keep sending me emails with kind but elaborate offers to secure large amounts of money by use of my bank accounts. I'm thinking about mailing back "No thanks, but I want the keyboards from your homeland instead."

That, btw, if not a HHKB Pro. I count 6 rows of keys. The HHKB Pro has 5.