In Sunday's New York Times Magazine, the photographer Pieter Hugo documented the garbage dumps in Ghana, where computers are burned and ripped apart for their rich minerals.
(See Pics)Hugo explains on his Web site that he has been documenting the destruction of obsolete technology in Ghana for the past year. Most of his work focused on a slum called Agbogbloshie, which he says is referred to by the locals as Sodom and Gomorrah.
Hugo writes about the plight of those left to sift through the landscape of the dumps: Their response is a reminder of the alien circumstances that are imposed on marginal communities of the world by the West's obsession with consumption and obsolescence. This wasteland, where people and cattle live on mountains of motherboards, monitors and discarded hard drives, is far removed from the benefits accorded by the unrelenting advances of technology.