Giovana Vitola writes for the Dateline blog about her personal experience filming the toxic e-waste dump in Ghana…

That day, the first thing I saw was the smoke. A massive, powerful black smoke crossing through the largest food market in Accra, smothering and poisoning everything around it, including the vegetables and fruit that would later be consumed by those people.

I also saw kids as young as five ‘playing’ amidst all that smoke from the burning waste. They were scavenging for copper and wires in the largest e-waste graveyard in Africa, while inhaling the toxic fumes and chemicals.

It was hard to cope with what I was seeing. I had to keep focused and get the best shots I could to try to show the audience back in Australia the serious issue right in front of me.

While interviewing a shoe seller, the black chemical smoke came straight into my face. I had to flee as quickly as possible but also had to show – or at least try - what was happening to me at that particular moment. So without thinking much, I turned the camera to my face and said what I was feeling and what had just happened.

I felt a bit sick and couldn’t breath very well, and when I got home I was told to throw away all of my clothes and wash myself really well… even though we’d just spent a few hours there.

It was absolutely horrific. I took some time to realise that what I was seeing was, in fact, real life of real people killing themselves, slowly.

The sad fact is that, together with other developed countries, Australia has been sending its electronic waste all the way to Africa, particularly Ghana. And without a permit, that is highly illegal. It is criminal.

Throughout the investigation, I was exposed to all this harsh reality. I learnt that usually the e-waste, when sent to other countries, is disguised as household goods or personal belongings, so it doesn’t go through any rigorous control or checks. Some is shipped as donations to hospitals, for example.

That is why we needed to film it all arriving in the port, to prove it was happening and how. Even though filming in ports is absolutely not allowed without the correct documentation, we managed to make our way through and used a hidden camera. Risky for sure, but necessary.

To our surprise, two containers full of Australian e-waste had just arrived that day from Sydney. 

Talking with the receivers, pretending we were buyers, they told us one of them had flown from Sydney to receive it, and that they were not the only ones doing that. But apparently “many people are doing it in Australia because there is just so much e-waste there”.

The reality is that all this junk being sent to countries like Ghana comes at a high cost. Not to the industrialised countries, but to the environment and less privileged people on the other side of the world.