Digital Dumping Grounds

When containers of old computers first started arriving in West Africa a few years ago, the Ghanaian government welcomed them as donations. It soon became clear that as few as 50 percent of the donated computers were in working condition or showed any hope of being fixed.

Broken, discarded computers up in massive piles outside of Ghana’s most impoverished slums. There, children melt down toxic plastic casings to retrieve scraps of valuable metals inside. Emmy-award winning journalist Peter Klein and a team of grad students from the University of British Columbia traveled to Ghana, China, and India to find out where our used electronics end up. The result of their investigation airs this week on PBS's Frontline/World. Producer and correspondent Peter Klein joins us on the line to tell us more.

Watch the trailer for "Digital Dumping Ground":

(Photo by Vibek Raj Maurya via Flickr/Creative Commons)