Joseph Kim, Yaw Amoyaw-Osei and Calah Lambertson

These people are standing on piles of e-Waste on top heavy metal contaminated soil, breathing in sewage gases and toxic odors from the river behind them.... so why are the smiling ???

Particulates, acid gases, metals, PAHs,

You do not want to stand in this ground plume.

e-Waste workers burning copper wires (YIKES !!!)

This is the riskiest task and the one that Greenpeace reported on in 2008. After dismantling a computer for recoverable parts, the bundles of copper wires are burned to strip off plastic covering. No one buys copper wires with the sheathing attached so they must get the plastic off. We also sampled these workers.

Follow the smoke....

The steps: buying waste computers, breaking, dismantling, sorting, copper wire collection, then BURNING.....

That Calah knows her sampling pumps

Problems always arise in worker sampling, luckily Calah handled them quickly and efficiently. Well done....

e-Waste workers

Well it's happening. With the help of Ghana Health Service, EPA, Green Advocacy and the Agbogbloshie Market Associate we equipped our study participants with sampling devices for Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Volatile Organic Compounds, Total Suspended Particulates, Heavy Metals and Acid Gases and sent them out to do their thing. But since this recyclers market is 95% Muslim Ghanians (from the north) we had to accommodate Friday prayers.

Joe needs help from Calah (or is it the other way aound??)

Now what did Prof. Caravanos say we should do with this hose?

Bret Ericson working (I think)

Actually he's an amazing guy and works very hard. Also owns a Triumph (nice going Bretsky)

Peacocks everywhere

The birds are not allowed in the building without shoes.

Colleagues from Nigeria, Benin and Burkina Faso

As part of the Global Inventory Project (Blacksmith Institute) I had to do some training while in Ghana. Met some great people from West Africa.

Calah Lambertson and Joseph Kim are happy to get out of a long meeting

Meeting Day...

There seems to be endless meetings when doing international work. I guess that's good but very exhausting. All day Thursday I/we met with Ministry officials (Health, Environment, Energy) and several important NGOs. All looks good for our big sampling event Friday and Saturday.

Day One (or is it two?)

Everyone got to Ghana fine. Entourage of people picked us up from airport. It was 99 degrees and 110% humidity (LOL). The air was thick like London fog (or is it smog?). I stayed at Dodowa with some friends at the Marina Dodowa Motel. It's 2 hours from the coast but I'm still looking for the Marina. There are Peacocks running around like pigeons screaming all the time. Looking for love I suspect.
Calah and Joseph stayed closer to town at a Guest House. I'm meeting up with them at the Ministry of Health later today (Thursday) to work out logistics of air sampling. Several Environmental Protection Ministry officials want training on conducting sampling. Have to fit that in somewhere.

Getting Ready to Roll

Prof Jack Caravanos and Hunter College graduate EOHS students Calah Lambertson and Joseph Kim are leaving today for Ghana to assist the Ministry of Health assess eWaste worker chemical exposures. We're also providing training to Ministry staff and local NGO to develop environmental assessment capacity. But we're not looking forward to the 18+hour trip!!

Oops, forgot to pick up my malaria pills. Have to buy DEET when I get there (or Malarone).