Making a mobile oven, or mini-kiln; for melting plastics originally but whatever you need to bake. Pick or make the right caster wheels for the sort of mobility mini-kiln usage requires.
mini-kiln with flexible tube to LPG cylinder attached.
Plastics constitute a significant portion of the Agbogbloshie waste stream, moving through stages of collection, sorting (by type and colour), cleaning, shredding and even in some cases molding into pellets. (See Plastics blog post). With at least 7 micro-factories by our count, Agbogbloshie is a key part of the plastic recycling industry in Ghana, and integrally interconnected with both local and global production cycles. To date, the failure of Agbogbloshie’s industrial ecosystem to add value to plastic material recycled on-site is a lost opportunity for local manufacturing.
Building on our experiments with plastic during AMPQAMP and drawing on the knowledge and expertise of oven fabricators based on the ground in Agbogbloshie, we are now co-designing and prototyping a mini-kiln. This week, William Mensah completed fabrication of the first prototype in Accra Timber Market,adjacent to Agbogbloshie. The mini-kiln fits the standard module of the AMP spacecraft and is one of the first tools from the AMP tool-set developed to plug into the community workshop.
mini-kiln in accra timber market, fiber insulation exposed before top sheet fixed in place.
The prototype, is composed essentially of a frame of angle bars, inner and outer layers of sheet metal with a layer of what is locally called “fibre” (PUR foam insulation sourced from air-conditioner dismantling). We didn’t finish until evening, but couldn’t wait to test. Hence using shredded plastics from Agbogbloshie, we made new recycled plastic tiles, heating the the plastics to their melting point, and allowing them to cool. We intend to carry out carry more of such low-high tech plastic experiments soon in our spacecraft. Stay tuned for more and be sure to share with us, your innovative ideas regarding plastic recycling.
Plastic tiles made by using the mini-kiln (From the left: HDPE, PP and PET recycled plastics)
Notes:
+Need to add chimney, temperature gauge, and calibrated gas control.
+Cost compare with 2-module wide unit, cylindrical drum cast concrete or clay insulated.
+Link with rotational plastics moulding machine:feedback-enabled temperature controls.
Dis-assembly of mobile phones constitute an increasingly significant facet of the e-waste industry here in Agbogbloshie. Metals from these phones form part of the urban mined resource of the city, albeit not as ubiquitous as other equipment such as refrigerators, and microwaves.
Dis-assembly of mobile phone by an e-waste worker in Agbogbloshie
As part of the process of making the AMP’s E-manuals, the team with its Agbogbloshie field agents and members of the AMP makers collective (Sam and Iddrisu), disassembled a mobile phone at Agbogbloshie. We made use of the most available tools, (mainly screw drivers owned by the e-waste workers themselves), and carefully took apart the phone, in a manner that preserved each component. We then identified and documented via photographs, each of these. Such hands-on dis-assembly activities enables the team (with diverse backgrounds), to understand better, the nature of the electronics that are in Agbogbloshie.
Documented phone parts
As it is with other equipment in Agbogbloshie, mobile phones that arrive here are usually in a wide range of conditions. Those in fairly good condition are resold altogether or have their working parts sold to phone repairers(who troop in, in search of such working parts). Those that are in totally bad shape are scraped for constituent metals. It is common to find that, phones arriving here for dis-assembly already have missing parts and/or components such as batteries. According to the e-waste workers, these are sometimes removed by collectors before they reach Agbogbloshie. Some of the most valuable parts of the mobile phones inside Agbogbloshie are the screen and circuit boards. Once these and other parts are removed, they follow the same process as other e-waste and are either sold locally to phone repairers for re-use or to middle-men.
The E-waste processing industry in Ghana has in recent times attracted much interest and research. However, one major hurdle in researching this urban phenomenon is inadequate records on volumes passing through such places as Agbogbloshie. This situation makes the task of describing it with specific and accurate numbers very difficult. Motivated by this, the AMP team has undertaken to gradually map out the quantities of metals passing through this most complex open air factory. On the map below are GPS locations of burning, dismantling, mosques among others in Agbogbloshie. The GREEN points indicate weighing scale locations.
Map of Agbogbloshie. source AMP field work 2014
In collaboration with our field agents, we devised a simple way to quantify the volume of urban mining happening in Agbogbloshie. First, we mapped the scales (see picture above), which are the points at which large volumes of metals are weighed.
A weighing scale in Agbogbloshie
We then proceeded to collect on a daily basis, the amounts of scrap metals weighed at these places. In what we considered to be the pilot phase, we recorded over a three week period, the figures from a select group of scale owners and then, analyzed these graphically.
One finds, there are ferrous metals, non-ferrous metals and plastics. During the process, we realized that, significant volumes of steel from such large equipment such as cars are not weighed due to their sheer size. They are rather sent straight to steel processing industries such as those in Tema. Hence, even though the graph indicates aluminium as the largest, this only refers to household appliances that are regularly weighed and documented. In the future, this “lost” data will be retrieved from these industries. At the current rate, copper is the most valuable metal ( 7 GHC/pound) followed by brass(4 GHC/pound) and aluminium (1.5 GHC/pound). When it comes to plastics, the most commonly processed are polypropylene (PP) and high density polyethylene (HDPE). At the end of the month of November, the team will go on a massive data hunt, collecting on a much larger scale, this kind of information from all over Agbogbloshie.
E-waste workers in Agbogbloshie determine material type based on experience: years of dismantling and disassembly, visual examination and use of magnets to identify ferrous metals. However, in order to improve recycling practices — including protecting workers from hazardous materials — more advanced methods are required for identifying 3E-materials (i.e. materials present in Electrical and Electronic Equipment).
For the past few months, AMP team has been researching one technology that can help — spectroscopy, which detects the wavelengths of light unique to each material. First, we built a paper spectroscope that enables us see various spectra of light. Other DIY projects we have tried include foldable mini-spectrometer, and cd spectrometer. We used the spectral workbench software to analyze some spectra of light from different sources we recorded. Some of the sources were white florescent, blue light and candle light.
The goal of this research is to build a spectroscope that enables us to analyze the elemental composition of scrap materials in Agbogbloshie. A promising technique for identifying chemical elemental composition of a sample is called Laser Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). Another DIY project of interest to this research is the ramanpi spectrometer which is based on raman spectroscopy. These and other techniques will be explored to achieve the goals of our research.
Assembling a lamp holderTesting the paper spectroscope
“Africa needs meaningful investment to alleviate poverty and provide inclusive prosperity. To achieve this, we need to be able to provide environments that promote quality investment for the people and reduce risks. Forums like the IPA are necessary to make the most of the continent’s investment,” AgriProtein spokesperson David Drew (Winner of IPA 2013)
Typically when the world talks innovation, Africa is not part of that conversation. However, people living on the continent know that is both oversight and misconception: the vicissitudes of daily life in African environments engender strategies and tactics for survival that are radically innovative. Unfortunately, in contradistinction to this reality, a majority of African educational and research institutions underperform at driving innovation to address the challenges of daily life in these same spaces. Too often the emphasis is on “pure” academic research divorced from real-world applications. Or when research does link to applications, that coupling does not include viable implementation plans to bring the ideas to market or to scale. Africa has an abundance of brilliant minds. What is missing is a results-oriented ecosystem to translate indigenous invention into products and services that can transform society. On the evening of October 1st, a dozen young Ghanaian innovators and changemakers joined with the AMP team to welcome Pauline Mujawamariya, Director of Innovation Price for Africa (IPA), at the Hub Accra.
Now in its fourth year, the prize continues to increase its profile globally, the size of it’s pan-African community of innovators and concomitant capacity to shift the conversation about innovation in Africa. An emerging force in the global innovation discourse, the IPA prize — an initiative of the African Innovation Foundation — provides support for significant inventions by Africans in Africa, not just to honour the winners for their ingenuity, but to help their inventions become true innovation through market-based delivery. This year’s winners were Dr Nicolaas Duneas and Nuno Pires from South Africa, who developed an Osteogenic Bone Matrix (OBM), the first of its kind in the world. This invention is straight out of science fiction: “The OBM injection leads to the rapid, safe and effective healing of problematic bone injuries, leading to the complete and natural restoration of the bone, including the bone marrow.” (1) Yes, that means an injection that makes bones regenerate.
IPA 2013 winner AgriProtein went on to raise “$11 million from strategic partners to commercialize and globalize its IP.” (2)
AMP co-founder D.K. Osseo-Asare with Pauline Mujawamariya, Director of the Innovation Prize for Africa, during the session.
After setting up the bamboo furniture “living-room style”, we dove deep into a two-hour long discussion about the nature and future of African innovation. Pauline gave a brief overview of what the Innovation Prize for Africa was about and then engaged attendees — all either founders of or actively involved in technology start-ups — as they asked questions about the IPA prize, shared their personal experiences and the challenges of youth-led entrepreneurship in Ghana and West Africa. Topics ranged from “problems”, i.e. social and cultural factors that inhibit innovation, to countermeasures that can lead to solutions (over time).
Far from being a talk shop of hopeless complaints, one could sense a joint resolve to take these insights and turn them into action. The atmosphere was charged with electric potential energy.
One part of the conversation worth sharing… We debated whether the IPA Prize reinforces the “false myth” of innovators as lone geniuses, when in reality, innovation occurs through the interconnected efforts of groups of people (networks), not just individuals. Could not the IPA be more effective if it supported technology clusters or collaborative projects? Pauline’s response was that while innovation is a joint venture, leaders still play an instrumental role in making innovation happen. The IPA Prize seeks to ensure that pioneers receive the attention and support that can enable them to facilitate the massively-scaled change that the continent needs so urgently.
Which leads us to… Applications for the IPA Prize — which awards $150,000 in total to winners — are due at the end of this month. Already around the social web, we are seeing retweets and Facebook shares encouraging people to “Apply to the prize!” This is great, and we support it. You SHOULD apply. It’s more than about simply winning. Going through the process of applying, or even talking about applying, can serve to remind you that you can be and likely ARE an innovator already. Everything starts in the mind, and once you see the power you have to affect change, it becomes infinitely easier to make it happen.
But we want to add something else: Encourage other people around you to apply! African culture is predicated on the concept of community. When you raise up one person, you raise up everyone. YOU know the people around you doing amazing things. Even if there is no direct benefit for you, encourage those people in your circles and networks who you admire — who inspire you — to apply to the IPA prize. Sometimes people may not even see how amazing what they are doing is. They need someone else to help them see it. This applies especially to youth under the age of 25. Talk to the “whiz kids” that you know that have created things — just because they wanted to — but which they may not see as inventions.
The deadline for entry is 31st October, 2014 and we hope to see as many youth (under the age of 25) and women as possible enter and win the prize. Together we can redirect the conversation around innovation in Africa.
Young innovators and changemakers with Pauline Mujawamariya, Director of IPA Prize, at the Hub Accra.
Pauline Mujawamariya has worked with international organisations such as UNICEF and GTZ prior to IPA. In her current capacity as IPA Director, she travels the length and breadth of the continent, recruiting a large-scale network of innovators who will — one creative step at a time — help transform the entire African continent. More pictures of the event on Flickr.
It’s not every day you get people agreeing to hang out in a place they consider a slum, particularly where its been labelled as a highly toxic area. On the 21st day of September 2014, for the second year running, the National volunteer’s day took place all over the country. Also known as founder’s day, is the birthday of the first president of Ghana, Kwame Nkrumah. The day was initiated by the Ghana think foundation as a way of encouraging the spirit of patriotic volunteerism among young people around the country.
The AMP team reached out to the public to help tell the story of Agbogbloshie. Even before physically meeting on the site on event day, the energy was high and the vibe on social media was intensive. Actually, we converged on social media, long before we did in Agbogbloshie. When we finally migrated from our digital space to real space, we converged in front of the national youth authority building, where filled with a high sense of purpose to make a difference, participants, without much prompting, initiated conversations between themselves and e-waste workers who had been interviewed by the AMP team. The eventual venue for the pre-event orientation was in the green advocacy office space, which it has benevolently made available for use by the national youth authority and the scrap dealers association.
After brief introductions of AMP team and the executives of the Greater Accra Scrap Dealers Association, the activities of the day began in earnest. The activities for the day fell into three neat categories of :
Mapping: GPS locations of water sources, maker culture, electricity sources and food joints in the yard.
Spacecraft: Drilling of holes, leveling the ground and assembling of Octet trusses
Storytellers: Video recording of activities of some e-waste workers
Micro-architecture: Observe workspaces of scrap dealers
The volunteers comprised of freelance journalists, designers, architects, students, videographers and photographers amongst others. Participants volunteered to join one or the other category and all groups went out to undertake diligently their assignment for about two hours after which all conveyed back to the AMP site to help in assembling the spacecraft. The assembling of the spacecraft was centre stage for the day. The team had drawings of the makerspace mounted, while assembly proceeded. Once the community (e-waste workers in Agbogbloshie) got to know about our intention, they availed themselves and participated with enthusiasm in the tasks till the end. There was a lot of fun, as well as very relevant connections made. There was even a point where participants including the e-waste workers came together to sing.
The volunteers were delighted to participate as they discovered a lot about Agbogbloshie. They made very interesting videos and took some pictures which some of them shared on blog posts.
The program has actually achieved its goals and through this AMP progressed on the building of the spacecraft. It also created an atmosphere for the community to socialize. The program helped in correcting this false notion of Agbogbloshie being just a land of pollution and dumb site in the mind of people. They realized that aside dismantling of electronic equipment there is also a lot of relevant maker and/or recycler culture.
AMP National Volunteers Day 2014
The stories we tell of ourselves affect our lives. At AMP, it has been our intention right from the onset to tell the untold stories of Agbogbloshie and its environs. Through mapping, interviews, photography and videos, we have sought to understand this vast and intense landscape, often denigrated by popular media reportage. By these tools, we intend to encourage and improve best practises, gradually eliminate the not so good and to transform the entire Agbogbloshie into a vibrant industrial hub. This year, as we commemorate founders day ( also National Volunteers Day) be part of this, process of transformation. If you are a storyteller, photographer or videographer, a computer programmer, own a smart phone or don’t belong to any of these categories and yet are a change-maker, this is your chance. Join the Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform for National Volunteers Day. We are making interactive digital maps, videos and photo-journals, listening to untold stories and telling it to the world. We are educating e-waste workers on health, accounting, materials and design.
Register and help us bring change where it matters most.
9:00 am – Orientation and meeting with Scrap dealers executives.
9:45 am – Division into teams — spacecraft, photography and videography, mapping, interviews (storytellers).
10:00 am – Activities Begin
11:30 am – Convergence and exchange of ideas – ( in the spacecraft)
12 noon – Refreshment & Departure
About Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP)
Agbogbloshie Makerspace Platform (AMP) is an experiment in youth-led R&D: a collaborative project to upgrade the quality of life and environment at Agbogbloshie, the largest e-waste processing site in Ghana. In actuality, Agbogbloshie may be the center, but the Accra-Tema scrap industry generally is much more distributed and has spatially many urban processing routes and clusters.
The AMP project seeks to create an alternate convention that links Agbogbloshie’s e-waste, scrap & recycling industry with the technical know-how and social entrepreneurial framework to itself remake the landscape, over time. The approach is to design and build locally a knowledge database and set of tools for e-waste processing and digital fabrication. The intention is to empower informal sector e-waste workers and their peer groups to rehabilitate the environment of Agbogbloshie and to help green the community’s current recycling practices. The short-term goal is to design and build a makerspace for the hyper-local context of Agbogbloshie, together with an open-source technology platform to support its operation. The long-term goal is to transform Agbogbloshie’s e-waste and scrap industry into a network for more advanced materials processing and small-scale distributed manufacturing.
Could Agbogbloshie begin to supply low-cost upcycled computers to children in Old Fadama? Could this scope expand beyond this territory to other parts of Accra and to the under-privileged in Ghana? Could this net expand to cover the entire African continent? Imagine upcycled computers, supplied to all parts of the world from Agbogbloshie. There is a promising future for this and needs to start somewhere.
As part of engaging the Agbogbloshie community and STEAM professionals, AMP organized a ‘maker workshop’ to teach e-waste workers how to make a Jerry and install software on it. After a rainy morning, the AMP team arrived in Agbogbloshie in the afternoon. Most of the work-spaces in the scrap yard were partially flooded. Being Friday, and a majority of the e-waste workers being Muslims, they had just arrived from the Friday afternoon prayers. Since prior arrangements had been made with Sam Sandow (AMP agent in Agbogbloshie) and Zack (E-waste worker), the workshop started in one of the computer shops in Agbogbloshie located near the entertainment center. It is owned and operated by the Nigerian called ”Emeka”. The very same person from which components were sourced for the Jerry workshop in Kokrobite. The shop has shelves on which one would find hard drives, mother boards, circuit boards and many others.
Emeka’s computer shop in Agbogbloshie
Upon arrival, the team pitched tent and Daniel (AMP intern from creativity group KNUST) briefly introduced the Jerry concept to the community. After we explained the concept to Emeka, a monitor, keyboard and mouse, were made available for us to use. He also gave us a compact disc (CD) with an operating system. The team installed it and allowed the participants to familiarize themselves with the Jerry whilst interactively exchanging ideas with the AMP makers collective.
It’s highly informative and exciting to think that, these same e-waste workers who are among the most marginalized and least literate are actually computer literate- and that some of them are even self-thought. This reveals how much youthful potential is being lost to class stereotyping and the resultant marginalization.
The team later presented the concept of the Quadcoper to the workers by Samuel Amoako (AMP intern and student from KNUST). It was then flown on the football field to demonstrate how it will help AMP map Agbogbloshie and also monitor air pollution levels.
AMP collective on the football field in Agbogbloshie…About to fly the Quadcopter
All through history, some of the most fascinating discoveries have come about as a result of conversations between two unlikely parties or people from highly divergent backgrounds who would ordinarily not interact. The creation of a community space where such interaction can happen and spark new genius via the crafting of the ground breaking ideas and objects is one of the central objectives of AMP.
As usual, the workers were busy with their activities: dismantling, loading trucks with scrap metals etc… but some were able to spend time with us and expressed their interest in making one themselves. One of the common questions asked was..whether the plastic will melt when the computer overheats? We answered them by discussing the physical properties of the type of plastic used, such as its melting temperature which is about 130oC and it’s combustion point which is between 340oC to 380oC. Another major concern was the market for the product and the price one should be sold. In effect they appreciated the fact that, parts of old computers can be sourced and used to make a server that works and are cheaper. The AMP team hopes to transfer the knowledge in assembling Jerry computer to making a Jerry Laptop (‘JerryTop’) in the near future.
Agbogbloshie has suffered incredibly from the single story syndrome, imposed on it by the media and those with the opportunity to tell its story. Beyond the e-waste, the burning and the hardship, that usually characterises the gruesome descriptions of this urban enclave and its surroundings, there are several industries and practices within this urban site that gives it the kind of rich urban flavour that the space has. One major way of way of dealing with this threat of the single story, is to engage directly with a people. To see through their eyes and to feel what they feel. At AMP, we have made it our lifetime goal, to change first, the story of Agbogbloshie, for “he wields power over you who tells your story”.
In the last few months, the AMP team have sought to hear the stories of e-waste workers in Agbogbloshie through the use of interviews. For us, these are the voices that should be heard. It is our primary aim, through these interviews, to give a voice to the voiceless, to inform the E-waste workers and invite them to be a part of the AMP makers collective. The team recruited and trained two of the e-waste workers (Sam & Iddrisou) to help with the process and they have been engaged in all AMPs activities for the past five months. They participated fully and performed tasks from translation to administering the questionnaires themselves as well as photographing the work spaces of the interviewees. As part of the interview process the team continued to map the e-waste landscape, this time, with specific reference to the interviewees and the location of their workspaces. From this data a detailed map of the Agbogbloshie ecosystem is being constructed. The process is helping the team better understand the working conditions of e-waste workers, the various relationships that exist between them, their future aspirations and the nature of the Agbogbloshie site itself. Hopefully, this will help the team better integrate their needs into the project. So far, over 500 workers have been interviewed. The interviews, which started in May 2014 and are still ongoing and have four main areas of interest:
E-Waste Expertise 2. Training 3. Health Awareness and Practices 4. Aspirations
So far, certain patterns are beginning to emerge- majority of the population in Agbogbloshie are from the Northern part of Ghana especially towns and villages near Tamale, the lingua franca of Agbogbloshie is Dagbani, though some have good command of the English language, majority do not. Most of them dropped out of school at the Junior high school and primary (P5 & P6) levels.
E-waste workers engage in various forms of purchasing of equipment, disassembly, weighing and sale, and provide several tons of urban mined materials like copper. There are also many industrious and entrepreneurial individuals who make highly useful objects. Indeed, Agbogbloshie is more than just an e-waste dump. During the survey we took photographs of some of the activities that go on in the yard and here is a field note.
Despite all of these very positive aspects of Agbogbloshie, there still remains the blight of filth and cable burning which means the risk of contamination and disease are highly pervasive. In general, there is a fair level of awareness about health risks amongst the e-waste workers. Thanks to the ubiquitous media coverage of that specific issue, e-waste workers are at least vaguely aware of the adverse effects of burning on their health. They however said that since it was their job, they felt as if they had no option than to do it. In reaction to this discovery on health, the AMP team have designed a utility shirt for the workers. When the second prototype of the utility shirt (the spacesuit) was showed them, e-waste workers insisted on the face gear (with possible embedded gas mask). It was observed that, workers in Agbogbloshie start their day early with the cart pushers, moving out early in the morning to source electronic equipment. Our discoveries provide us with information about Agbogbloshie but this is helping us understand the workings of informal communities, and people who are surviving on the “peripheries” of our awareness and yet contribute significantly to our lives. More than just an e-waste dump, Agbogbloshie is a huge open air manu-factory.
Agbogbloshie is a challenging site. As a space, Agbogbloshie is sensory overload: soil and water darkened from pollution exude noxious vapours under the heat of the sun; toxic fumes emanate from burning sites; the clamour of slamming hammers and banging chisels fills the air… But that is only part of the Agbogbloshie story.
A closer look at the ecosystem of the giant self-organized open-air factory shows that Agbogbloshie is about more than destruction alone. A parallel set of activities support the livelihood of onsite workers: food and entertainment spaces — Agbogbloshie has both a cinema and foosball tables! Numerous mosques dot the landscape (we found a total of 14 mosques in the area surveyed) serving five times a day the faithful that are working nearby. Since believers must take ablution before praying, water circulates in plastic tea pots from water tanks, the few municipal water supplies and public toilets/showers that are sprinkled around the site. Workers also engage in making: making tools (such as chisels) to disassemble e-waste or other items into scrap that has a resalable value, making machines (such as a furnace blowing system using a bicycle wheel) to make these tools, and making items (aluminum pots and coal pots using metals harvested from refrigerators) to sell outside the boundaries of the site.
Furnace blower at a blacksmith workshop making chisels for e-waste disassembly
We love the hand-crafted bicycle tyre-powered blowers used to ventilate locally-fabricated furnaces for cottage industry smelters (seen in various places). They are a powerful example of the on-going knowledge transfer within Agbogbloshie and testament to the intertwined nature of making and technology development. Exactly what AMP seeks to further leverage in Agbogbloshie.
Here is the link to our Flickr album Made in Agbogbloshie. While (e-)waste processing is crude and hasty to maximize profit (informal e-waste workers earn a higher than average income compared to informal workers overall), we certainly see all the parts necessary to make the machine, the self-organized open-air factory, run smoothly. Making is just part of it.
AMP 