Spellbound by their efficacy, marvelling at their finesse, the 21st Century lifestyle is hopelessly hung up on electronic gadgets and appliances as the ultimate gateway to earthly contentment.
What this insatiable appetite has left in its wake is an endless trail of e-waste — an informal name for electronic products that are no longer wanted — which is the fastest-growing waste stream in the world.
Every year, up to 50 million tonnes of electronic waste — computers, television sets, mobile phones, household appliances — are discarded in the developed world. Mysteriously, 75 per cent of this waste disappears from the legal recycling circuits; much of it being dumped illegally in Africa, China or India. The multi-million dollar business of illegal recycling and waste dumping pollutes the environment and destroys the lives and health of those forced to live with it.
German documentary filmmaker Cosima Dannoritzer’s striking work The E-Waste  Tragedy delves into the murky parallel world of illegal e-waste trafficking and takes the viewer on a compelling journey of investigation to Europe, China, Africa and the US, to reveal how greed and corruption is eating us away.
Dannoritzer’s documentary was screened at the recent Al Jazeera International Documentary Film Festival in Doha. Here, she clues Community in on the big picture:
 
What got you started into making this film?
My previous documentary, The Light Bulb Conspiracy, briefly shows the e-waste dumpsite in Agbogbloshie in Ghana (it is the world’s largest e-waste dumpsite). At many screenings across many festivals, viewers reacted very strongly to these images, and asked us: How come all this e-waste is being trafficked to Ghana from Europe and the US and other places if we have modern recycling plants, easily accessible collections points, laws prohibiting illegal exports, controls at the ports, etc. If we have all this, why is e-waste being shipped all around the world? The E-Waste Tragedy documentary is the reply to that question.
 
How did you come across Ghanaian environmental journalist Mike Anane, who is a key character in your film?
I first met Mike during the shoot of The Light Bulb Conspiracy when we were organising the filming at the Agbogbloshie dumpsite. When he started telling us about the children who work there under perilous conditions and about his fight to stop the illegal e-waste imports to his country, we decided to shoot a whole sequence with him.
During the filming, he showed us the discarded computer pieces he had found there, and the logos which were still visible and which showed the names of the original owners of the pieces, amongst them many British and American banks, public institutions, schools and universities, law enforcement agencies, US military hospitals. There were also many European companies; the logos are literally from all over the world, showing that e-waste is a very widely traded product.
Mike told us that he wanted to confront the original owners with the dumped equipment and ask them how their computers had found their way illegally to Ghana. In the end, this became the opening sequence of The E-Waste Tragedy and we travelled all over Great Britain with him.
 
What was the most challenging part about carrying out an investigation of such great scale?
It was a challenge to get the true facts and figures, and to confirm the international scale of the issue. A lot of the authorities don’t like to admit that the problem exists. The electronics manufacturers and the organisations set up by them to organise the recycling system are not fully transparent.
An e-waste trafficker will never own up to an illegal e-waste shipment on a customs declaration but might write ‘scrap metal’ or ‘plastics’ instead. A lot of the scrap dealers who siphon business off the legitimate recycling plants are part of the black economy. A growing part of the illegal traffic is happening via the Internet, transcending national borders. So you need to do a lot of cross-checking.
 
Tell us how you went about gathering all the bits and pieces of this story.
A solid investigation needs time and patience, so the producers at Media 3.14 and Yuzu Productions had to raise sufficient funds for an investigation which spanned several continents. This meant setting up a sizeable co-production during a period of two years. At one stage, I spent two months in Hong Kong as artist-in-resident of the Goethe-Institut to conduct research on the ground.
I wanted to find out how the e-waste gets from there to Mainland China, and then back again in the shape of new and second-hand electronics. For instance, it is said that 80 per cent of all electronics sold in Africa go through Chungking Mansions in Hong Kong but the traders who work in this legendary labyrinth of shops cannot be found in a phonebook!
The idea was, therefore, to dig up the facts and find out, for instance, why at least two thirds of the e-waste produced in the industrialised countries disappears from the official recycling circuits and ends up being dumped and/or exported.
 
As for the filming process, how many weeks or months did that take?
Filming took place on and off for several months because we literally went around the world with our film crew. It took us six months to organise the filming of the sequence in Hamburg Harbour where we are showing a container being investigated by local police. The reason for the delay was that under German law, we needed permission from the shipping container’s owner. And as e-waste smugglers are not in the habit of giving filming permissions, several months passed until we had found a container whose owner didn’t mind our cameras. This sort of situation always makes me wonder who’s got more rights — the crooks or the journalists who are trying to uncover them?
 What other sort of practical issues did you encounter?
Several sequences had to be filmed with secret cameras in order to be able to capture the problem accurately — there is always the official story, and then there is what really happens. For instance, Spanish consumers have the right to return old gadgets to retailers for recycling when buying a replacement (they pay for this upfront when buying a new appliance). However, many shop owners flout the law and either refuse to take back the equipment, or if they do take it back, it is frequently sold into the black market.
 
Was the atmosphere often hostile when you would visit places where people didn’t want to reveal much about the illegal manner in which they deal with recycling?
For me, it was quite a shock to see that many public institutions — especially in Spain and the UK — refused to acknowledge the problem. For instance, most of the institutions whose e-waste Mike had been found dumped in Ghana, declined to be interviewed. Everyone tried to pass the buck to somebody else, saying they would only ever employ legitimate recyclers. But then how come 75 per cent of all EU e-waste goes astray; and possibly even more in the US?
On another note, it was wonderful to discover that there is a growing international community out there, consisting of activists, bloggers, investigators as well as law enforcement who are increasingly working together. This includes China and Africa just as much as Europe and the US. For instance, US activists might inform a Chinese NGO that a container with an illegal shipment of e-waste is headed their way, and the cargo will be received accordingly at the other end.
 
This film has a bigger purpose to fulfil — that of educating people about something that they are perhaps, blissfully unaware of. How do you plan to do that?
This documentary is a collaboration between nine different public broadcasters and has by now been broadcast by more than 20 territories. We have also had the chance to do screenings at schools, universities, and environmental film festivals, as well as at events such as the World Resources Forum and even an Interpol conference dedicated to the issue. If anyone is interested in a screening, they can reach us via the film’s Facebook page —www.facebook.com/ewastetragedy.
 
Obsolescence is a theme you have dealt with in your previous film and book. Perhaps e-waste and its disposal are also slightly related to this concept?
Planned obsolescence is one of the major causes of the huge mountain of e-waste which we produce every single year worldwide; up to 50 million tons. If electronics lasted longer, or could be updated and repaired more easily, we would produce a lot less e-waste. We would also use up the planet’s resources at a lower speed and cause less contamination and health problems.
E-waste is the fastest growing type of waste but sadly it’s also one of the most toxic ones. I think we need to remember this before we throw out, for instance, a perfectly functional computer monitor or mobile phone just because it is last year’s model and we want to upgrade to the very latest.