The Digital Dump: Exporting Re-use and Abuse to Africa

From the makers of the 2002 documentary Exporting Harm: The High-Tech Trashing of Asia, the Basel Action Network's (BAN) The Digital Dump follows an investigative team sent to Lagos, Nigeria, where 500 shipping containers full of discarded computers and other electronics equipment arrive each month from waste brokers and “recyclers” in the United States and Europe. Only about 25% of the cast off computers sent to Nigeria can actually be re-used, ending up in places like the Ikeja Computer Village, a sprawling market of new and refurbished computers, pirated software, cell phones, and other electronics. Although these markets extend the life of computers and provide Nigerians with relatively affordable information access, there's a high environmental cost since most of the remaining 75% is “e-waste,” which is dumped in enormous heaps around Lagos and then burned when the piles become too large. The Digital Dump makes the point that every generator of hazardous waste should be responsible for it, and does so in a thought-provoking way that illuminates systemic problems, rather than pointing fingers at perpetrators. Drawing on interviews with Nigerian businessmen, as well as scholars and technology workers, the film offers a compelling and disturbing portrait of the afterlife of computers no longer useful to developed countries, revealing one of the less savory offshoots of trade in our globalized world. Recommended. [Note: both Exporting Harm and The Digital Dump are available together for $100.] Aud: H, C, P. (J. Wadland)