By Sampson Boamah
Young Positivist Writes
When we hear the word trafficking, our minds often turn to familiar crimes—human trafficking, child trafficking, drug trafficking and sex trafficking. But there is another form of trafficking receiving far less public attention: waste trafficking.
It is a global illicit trade that moves discarded and often hazardous materials across borders, frequently from wealthier countries to developing nations. Ghana is among the countries caught in this complex trade, where imported second-hand goods can provide livelihoods while leaving communities to bear the environmental and health consequences when those goods become waste.
The issue deserves greater attention because it sits at the intersection of climate change, public health, environmental protection, trade and livelihoods.
The climate connection
Climate change has both natural and human causes. However, since the pre-industrial era, human activities have become the dominant driver of the increase in greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere.
Ghana and other African countries contribute a relatively small share of global greenhouse gas emissions, accounting for less than five per cent of global emissions according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Yet the continent is increasingly dealing with the consequences of environmental degradation and climate change.
Economic needs are often used to justify activities that generate significant emissions and environmental damage. People need food, shelter, employment and other necessities to survive. But economic development cannot be separated from the health of the environment on which those livelihoods depend.
Waste trafficking demonstrates this tension clearly.
What is waste trafficking?
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) describes waste trafficking as the illegal trade in waste. It is a multibillion-dollar criminal activity that threatens human health, ecosystems and economic stability.
The trade can involve hazardous materials being deliberately misclassified or disguised as legitimate goods. Some waste may be presented as second-hand products, including used electrical and electronic equipment, even when it has little or no useful life remaining.
Criminal networks exploit weaknesses in national and international regulatory systems to move such materials across borders. Bribery, falsified documentation and increasingly cyber-enabled methods can also facilitate the trade.
The Financial Action Task Force (FATF) estimates that illicit waste trafficking generates between US$10 billion and US$12 billion annually worldwide.
Ghana as a destination
Ghana’s strong market for second-hand goods has made the country an important destination for used products from other parts of the world.
Around 150,000 tonnes of electronic waste are shipped to Ghana each year, both legally and illegally, according to Bloomberg.
The challenge is determining how much of what arrives is genuinely reusable and how much is effectively waste entering the country under the appearance of second-hand merchandise.
This raises an uncomfortable question: Why is it easier for developing countries to receive products that wealthier countries would subject to stricter controls?
The answer is partly linked to differences in regulatory systems, enforcement capacity and economic incentives.
Professor Marco Antonelli, a Political Science lecturer at the University of Pisa in Italy, has argued that the illegal export of hazardous waste from Europe is facilitated by weaknesses in controls over what leaves European ports.
The problem therefore cannot be placed solely on destination countries. Responsibility also extends to exporters, brokers, shipping companies, importers and authorities responsible for enforcing environmental and customs regulations.
The livelihood dilemma
Waste trafficking presents Ghana with a difficult contradiction.
The second-hand economy creates employment and income for thousands of people. Informal workers repair, dismantle, resell, collect and recover materials from discarded products. For many households, these activities are an important source of livelihood.
Ghana also faces significant poverty challenges. The World Bank has reported that about 27 per cent of the population lives in poverty.
This means any response to hazardous waste must go beyond simply banning imports or dismantling the informal economy.
The question is how Ghana can protect people and the environment while ensuring that workers who depend on the second-hand and recycling economy are not left without livelihoods.
That is where effective regulation, responsible trade and a stronger circular economy become essential.
From second-hand goods to environmental hazards
The problem becomes more serious when imported products reach the end of their useful lives.
Electronic waste, old vehicles, plastics and other discarded materials can end up in informal dumpsites, drains and open spaces. Where waste collection and recycling systems are inadequate, some materials are burned in the open to recover valuable components.
Open burning releases harmful pollutants into the atmosphere and exposes nearby communities to health risks.
Waste dumped in drains can also contribute to flooding by blocking waterways and drainage systems. In a country where heavy rainfall and flooding already pose serious challenges to communities, poor waste management can make the consequences worse.
The environmental damage therefore extends beyond the waste itself. It can affect air quality, water systems, public health, urban resilience and livelihoods.
A threat to the circular economy
Waste trafficking also undermines the principles of a circular economy.
Instead of materials being designed, reused, repaired, recycled and recovered within a controlled system, products can be moved across borders with little consideration for what happens at the end of their useful life.
The result is a system in which the economic benefits of consumption may be realised in one country while the environmental costs of disposal are transferred elsewhere.
For Ghana, the objective should not simply be to stop trade in used goods. It should be to distinguish useful second-hand products from disguised waste, while developing systems that allow valuable materials to be safely recovered and reused.
International rules, local responsibility
International agreements provide mechanisms for controlling hazardous waste movements.
The Basel Convention, adopted in the late 1980s and entering into force in the early 1990s, regulates the transboundary movement of hazardous and other wastes. It requires prior informed consent for covered waste shipments between countries.
Ghana has ratified the Basel Convention.
The Bamako Convention, adopted by African countries in the early 1990s and later entering into force, goes further by banning the import of hazardous and radioactive waste into Africa and regulating the movement and management of hazardous waste within the continent.
Ghana, however, has not ratified the Bamako Convention.
These international frameworks are important, but their effectiveness ultimately depends on national enforcement.
Who protects Ghana’s borders?
The Environmental Protection Agency, Ghana Standards Authority, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority and Customs Division all have important roles in ensuring that products entering the country meet applicable environmental, safety and quality standards.
Effective enforcement should include stronger inspection, verification of second-hand goods, better tracking of hazardous materials and cooperation between agencies.
But enforcement alone will not solve the problem.
Ghana also needs stronger systems for repair, reuse, recycling, producer responsibility and environmentally sound disposal.
Importers and exporters must be held accountable for what they trade, while consumers need better information about the environmental consequences of their purchasing and disposal choices.
Finding the middle ground
The waste trafficking debate should not become a simple argument between banning imports and allowing unrestricted trade.
There is a legitimate economic value in second-hand goods. Used computers, appliances, vehicles, machinery and clothing can provide affordable alternatives for consumers and create employment.
The problem begins when products that have little or no useful life are exported as reusable goods and the destination country is left with the cost of disposal.
Ghana therefore needs a system that protects legitimate second-hand trade while preventing the country from becoming a destination for hazardous waste.
That requires stronger enforcement, better border controls, transparent waste-tracking systems, responsible import practices and investment in recycling and circular-economy businesses.
The choice before Ghana
Waste trafficking is more than an environmental issue. It is a question of who benefits from global trade and who pays when that trade produces waste.
Ghana cannot continue to absorb the environmental costs of a consumption system designed elsewhere.
At the same time, the thousands of people whose livelihoods depend on the second-hand and waste economy cannot simply be pushed aside.
The way forward lies in finding that middle ground: protecting livelihoods while protecting people and the environment.
Ghana’s fight against climate change will not be won only through discussions about emissions and renewable energy. It must also confront the waste streams, consumption patterns and environmental injustices that increasingly shape everyday life.
Waste should not simply be someone else’s problem exported across a border.
It is a resource when properly managed, a hazard when neglected—and a serious public-interest issue when illegally traded.
Email: boamah.sampson34@gmail.com
Source: www.climatewatchonline.com
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