This article focusses on an inter-disciplinary and mixed-methods study of the critical circuit of minerals from irregular mines to e-waste dumps in Ghana. The move towards green energy and climate smart solutions has resulted in an increasing global demand for the minerals needed for low-carbon technology. This surge has caused a boom in irregular mining activities and trade in the Global South as the needed resources are moved north for inclusion in electronic components and products. Ironically, when depleted, these items often end up back in the same region as where the resources used to produce them were extracted. Shipped and traded as secondhand products they are discarded in e-waste dumps where they are mined once again for their mineral remains.
Vigh, Henrik,
"Illegal Ecologies: From Irregular Mining to the Dumping of E-waste"
(2022).
Commodity Frontiers.
Brown Digital Repository. Brown University Library.
https://doi.org/10.26300/h0w8-az42
Commodity Frontiers is the Journal of the Commodity Frontiers Initiative (CFI). Edited by a group of scholars and researchers from various disciplines and organizations in the CFI Network, the Journal explores the history and present of capitalism, contestation, and ecological …
