A routine day at the scrap yard turned into a fight for survival.
A scrap dealer we spoke to for our documentary ‘Toxic Smoke, Fragile Lives’ recounts how a young worker died while burning an airbag.
He says the airbag exploded without warning, its contents tearing into the boy’s throat as he tried desperately to escape. Then came his own brush with death. He was burning an airbag when another explosion struck his face.
For several terrifying minutes, he says, he could see nothing and was only convinced he had died.
“We lost a boy last month or two. He was burning an airbag; there is a substance [sodium azide] inside it, which exploded and cut his throat. He tried moving away but fell and died. Burning of the airbag is very dangerous and can kill a lot of people,” scrap dealer Issah Kwaku recounted.
He stated: “When one such blasted on my face, I couldn’t see anything; I thought I had died, my spirit left me. I sat for about five minutes before I regained consciousness.”
The documentary is scheduled to premiere on Sunday, October 4, 2026, at 5:30 p.m. on TV3 and across all digital platforms.
For years, open burning of electrical cables and other e-waste at Agbogbloshie has released dense smoke and fine particulate matter into the surrounding air.
Scientific measurements have found that workers involved in burning had the highest particulate exposures among e-waste workers at the site.
Personal PM2.5 exposure among workers was substantially higher than measurements at fixed locations, while other studies found that short periods of e-waste burning increased workers’ personal PM2.5 exposure.
Pollution is not simply about smoke — studies have documented particulate matter, polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and other hazardous contaminants associated with e-waste burning.
Academic research over the past years has found that informal e-waste recycling releases high volumes of substances like lead, mercury, brominated flame retardants and others into the air and soil.
The death of the young worker during the burning of the airbag indicates that behind every cloud of toxic smoke is a human story — one of livelihoods, risk and, for some, lives lost.
By Christian Yalley
