When Americans are ready to get rid of a car or a laptop or some of their clothes, where do those goods go?

Well, most end up in countries in the global south, where millions of people depend on repairing, dismantling, or selling them to make a living.

But now, amid lax regulations and legal loopholes, environmental groups say the business is a toxic trifecta of waste that inflicts catastrophic damage to land, coastlines and public health.

Fred de Sam Lazaro has the first of two reports from the West African nation of Ghana, produced in partnership with the Pulitzer Center.

Ghana has enjoyed economic growth in recent years, and nowhere is that more evident than on across streets,

where growing incomes have spiked the demand for automobiles.

Like cities anywhere, traffic delays are part of daily life, but here they are costly, not just

in time, but health and safety and the environment.

The cars that clogged the streets of Ghanas Capital have come a long way to be here, but they

didn't come directly from a factory.

Instead, most have had long lives

on the streets of America, Germany, Dubai, and many other places before being shipped here.

Long lives, that is, unless they were in an accident.

We came to the tank to.

That's how this 2018 Toyota sedan wound up in a repair yard. This came from the United States.

Northern Virginia, in fact, we traced it back to a listing on an auction website,

where it was sold, along with millions of used cars across a range of conditions,

shipped to Africa each year.

Some of them don't even make it onto the boat.

They need to be pushed on.

Kenya-based Rob De Jong with the United Nations Environment Programme has studied the global

trade and used cars.

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