The Courier

Boy hired to haul electronic scrap from Alaba market in lagos. Nigeria to this nearby informal dump sitting on a swamp.

© Basel Action Network

The idea is to reduce the potential impact of poor handling of electronic waste on health and the environment, but also to create job opportunities in the most disadvantaged communities. Kalus Hieronymi, head of HP’s Environment Business Management Organisation for Europe, the Middle East and Africa, said: “We see this project as a means to help develop an infrastructure to safely deal with electronic waste based on local habits and structures”. He added: “We hope that this initial analysis will enable us to create a widespread public-private partnership that will improve health and environmental standards and help disadvantaged communities by promoting skills and creating jobs”.

Pilot project in South Africa

The scheme for managing electronic waste in Africa will build on existing recycling plans, with the introduction of the initiative on a large scale between now and December 2008. The pilot project will take place in South Africa followed by Morocco, Kenya and Tunisia. The company set a target in 2004 of recycling 500,000 tonnes of electronic materials on a global scale by the end of 2007. Having achieved this objective six months earlier than anticipated, HP is now proposing the recycling of an additional 500,000 tonnes between now and 2010.

Africa used as a dustbin

The waste produced by electronic and electrical equipment is estimated at millions of tonnes a year and, according to the United Nations, represents more than 5% of all household waste. The UN has just launched a worldwide programme called StEP (Solving the E-Waste Problem).

According to the Basel Action Network (BAN), an international non-governmental organisation fighting trade and trafficking in toxic materials, 400,000 used computers and screens, in varying states and of all ages, enter Nigeria each month. François Ossama, an electronics specialist from Cameroon and author of the book, “Les Nouvelles technologies de l’information. Enjeux pour l’Afrique Subsaharienne” (The New Information Technologies. So Much at Stake for Sub-Saharan Africa) (www.riddac.org/blogs/francoisossama/), said that, under the pretext of giving gifts, “thousands of obsolete computers are dumped in countries that do not have any capability for recycling which is still complex to master at a technological level”. He added: “When a friend of mine, who works for a women’s association in Cameroon, called me two years ago to help her install computers that she received as a gift, we were extremely surprised and disappointed to find out that, of the eight computers received, just one worked and that was an IBM from the 1980s!”.