With a population of more than 7 mill., Hong Kong is one of the planet’s most densely packed metropolitan areas, with 25,900 people living in every square km of the territory. Unscrupulous landlords are charging around US$200 a month for a cage, which is packed 20 to a room. Other residents live in small wooden cubicles. This is a story about the housing situation in HK. Hong Kong’s poor people are struggling day in and day out to keep their heads above water. It is most scornful to see economic development bringing social inequality. These deprived people cannot enjoy their economic success. These people have been snubbed and have fallen into oblivion. Standing in the line of dejection are caged lodgers, tenants with financial difficulties and living in appalling conditions, aged singletons, street-sleepers, mothers with no one-way permit to live in Hong Kong, families made up of new immigrants and boat dwellers, etc.

We are used to collecting waste paper, bottles etc. and bringing old or broken electrical appliances to recycling depots. By doing this we feel that we are managing our resources sensibly. (Although it might not really be very sensible to keep buying new things all the time.) But it is often unclear, despite legal bans, where our appliances really go. According to a United Nations evaluation, up to 50 million tons of toxic electronic waste accumulates annually in the whole world. With the voluntary ratifi cation of the Basel Convention in 1989, the countries are forbidden by law to further export toxic electronic waste to countries that are not members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development OECD). ‘Sodom and Gomorrah’ is what the locals call the toxic waste dump, Agbogbloshie, in Ghana’s capital, Accra. It is where children and adolescents dismantle computers, mobile phones, TV sets and other devices and burn the electronics for any valuable metals. Noxious fumes fi ll the air; lead, cadmium, zinc, nickel and other chemical substances are emitted and damage the health of all who inhale them: headaches, dizziness, skin rashes and damage to the nervous system are the result. Not to mention the highly toxic residue that contaminates the soil.