ENTRY DESCRIPTION
Hideyo Fukuda, a Japanese photographer, puts himself in harm's way to tell a tragic story.

He stood near the smoking fires of burning waste cables to grab a critical scene. This exposed him to fine particles, dioxins, furans, and heavy metals, including lead, cadmium, and chromium.

Mr. Fukuda had been filming Mago Nagasaka, a Japanese artist, and his interactions with Agbogbloshie 'urban miners' in Accra, Ghana's capital city.

Agbogbloshie 'urban miners' use scrap tires and styrofoam packaging to burn waste cables to recover the copper materials inside. Also known as 'burner boys', they are exposed to heavy metals from morning till night.

Pure Earth and Green Cross Switzerland in 2013 listed Agbogbloshie among the top ten most polluted sites in the world. Along with Chernobyl, the 1986 nuclear accident site in Ukraine, and Dzerzhinsk, the Soviet-era chemical weapons manufacturing city.

The open burning of e-waste to recover precious metals at Agbogbloshie is a major source of toxic air pollution in Accra.

Agbogbloshie is also Accra's largest open food market.

This reminded me of the risks photographers face in their line of work.

AUTHOR
Muntaka Chasant is an entrepreneur, researcher, and a professional documentary photographer based in Accra, Ghana.

His work centers around the core challenges of sustainability, urban marginality, new and emerging challenges, including the “three planetary crises” of pollution, climate change, and biodiversity loss.

https://www.muntaka.com

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