![hoarding](../../../wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3361175057_35a872738b_z.jpg)
Tyler Fox
![hoarding](../../../wp-content/uploads/2014/07/3361175057_35a872738b_z.jpg)
I can imagine the future episode of “Hoarders” that features me. The emotional scene that attempts to explain the reasons behind the shocking amount of teetering piles of consumer electronics through which I navigate between on clearly unsafe, narrow trails, is a revelation of guilt. It’s first-world guilt: the cognizance of the likely social and environmental impacts of discarding that non-working computer currently tucked away in the junk drawer. The old laptops—working and non-working—are starting to accumulate, as are the external hard drives, iPods, headphones, power cables, usb cables….the pile is surreptitiously growing. As if the conditions of production of electronics were not bad enough, conditions of their ‘disposal’ is even worse. Recently, I came across a story about Agbogbloshie online. It is apparently the world’s largest e-waste dumping site. The former Ghanaian wetlands are roughly 4-acres and are covered by electronic waste from the rest of the world. Much of the waste is dropped illegally, from the US, the UK and other industrialized nations. It calls into question local recycling efforts; how do I know where my electronics go when I recycle them? A picture of old CRT-style televisions face down in dirty stream and used as stepping stones figures predominantly in my memory. That, and the stories of open and wounds that do not heal, apparent neurological disorders, lung disease and the commonality of individuals dying in their 20s. And so, not wanting to contribute to the problem, not knowing what else I can reliably do, I squeeze one more laptop into that box in the storage unit, stuff one more cable into that bag already full of similar cables.