Recycling economy: How Ghana wants to use electronic waste as an opportunity
Burning cables, toxic smoke: A scrapyard in Ghana has become a symbol of the global e-waste crisis. But the people there know a thing or two about recycling. Now they are supposed to make it cleaner.
In 2025, a record 3.4 million tonnes of new electronic devices were sold in Germany, while only 960,000 tonnes of old devices were officially collected. This has led to concerns about electronic waste, with a study finding that better collection and recycling could recover raw materials worth over €2 billion annually. Globally, 62 million tonnes of electronic waste were generated in 2022, with only a fifth being properly collected and recycled.
In Ghana, thousands of people make a living from processing electronic waste, with some companies working to develop more environmentally friendly methods, such as GreenAd, which recycles cables without burning them.
Written by urgent.news from Handelsblatt's report — not a translation of it. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
