Thoughts on Digital Graveyards

There’s a country in Africa. This country is named Ghana. Ghana is where we send our technological leftovers. In Ghana, there are several places known as “digital graveyards”. They're basically what the name implies. There are countless organizations, countless organizations that we support that send hundreds and hundreds of metric tons of unusable, irreparable, sometimes toxic, e-waste. Why? Why do you think? Money. Yes, it’s cheaper to send tons of technological waste to Africa, marked as a donation, than it is to properly dispose and/or recycle it.
We send the things we don’t want to the dying and desperate, the poor people of Ghana. Then again we don’t really care about that, now do we? Out of sight, out of mind, am I right? As long as we don’t see the suffering- scratch that- as long as the suffering isn’t happening to us, it doesn’t exist, it doesn’t need to be fixed, and we sure as hell won’t do anything about it. That would be an inconvenience. Heaven forbid.

I hate the lack of empathy, the lack of caring and the lack of dignity about these digital wastelands. The items we send there are useless. All they do is harm Ghana’s environment, and all too often its people. They’re things of no use to us, things we’re done with. We send them over to Africa in selfishness and self-convenience. And yet we have the nerve to mark them as charitable donations. That doesn't sound very charitable to me. It doesn’t really sound humane. All we’re doing is looking down on the people of Ghana and saying what are you going to do about it? (if that makes any sense). So what does that say about us? about our perspectives, values, ethics? We all like to think we’re good people. If that’s true, why aren’t we aware of evil? And above all, why don’t we try to do anything about it?

Please share your ideas and thoughts in the comments below.