The West has been using Africa to dump its toxic waste and unwantables for years and continues despite it having being illegal since 1992. In 1998 the EU implemented a ban on the exportation of hazardous waste from the West to the developing world, although the USA, Canada and New Zealand refused to sign. Just after the tsunami of December 2004, barrels of medical and chemical waste left on the shores of Somalia were broken open and the contents spilled. Some of the waste had been there since the early 1980s when warlords received large payments from the West to dump the waste, which came mainly from Switzerland and Italy. More recently an international plan to bring waste from the West to be dumped in Somalia was exposed during the investigation into the death of an Italian journalist.
In the late 1980s large amounts of toxic waste from Italy were found on Koko Beach, Delta State in Nigeria, resulting in burns, vomiting blood and partial paralysis by those who came into contact with it. In 2006 a Dutch ship dumped tons of caustic washings, used to clean oil drums, on Abidjan leaving people complaining of nausea, headaches and vomiting. The dumping of toxic waste has been replaced by dumping of electronic waste: computers and mobile phones which contain cadmium, lead, mercury and other poisons.
