Africa’s e-waste treasure trove set to be harnessed
Thursday, September 27, 2018 - 13:46:40
Although the growing amount of e-waste being dumped globally is clearly a complex issue, there are some areas in which it being conceived of as an opportunity to harvest valuable materials and leverage unwanted tech for economic purposes.
At a UN conference hosted earlier this month, spokesperson Paolo Falcioni pointed out that millions of tonnes of untraced e-wasted generated in Europe ends up in Africa, with countries like Nigeria and Ghana bearing the brunt of the burden.
The first challenge is how to manage this waste and avoid causing environmental damage, the second is how to extract the value still contained within old mobile phones, PCs and other gadgets.
From gold, silver and copper to glass and plastic, there are plenty of recyclable and reusable materials included in unwanted electronics, with various governments in Africa looking to process and reclaim them as efficiently and safely as possible.
Already these efforts are bearing fruit; 22,000 jobs have been created for young people in Ghana alone as a result of e-waste related initiatives. Further investment is needed, but there is a general enthusiasm for conquering this conundrum sooner rather than later, ensuring that there are adequate infrastructural elements in place to cope with the ever-increasing influx of outdated hardware.
The UN is directly involved in this for obvious reasons, both as a means of enhancing the economic resilience of African nations and as a way of ensuring that discarded electronics do not become a hazard to the health of residents in some poorer parts of the world.
Western nations have a responsibility to deal with e-waste they produce, both in terms of tracking it effectively after it is collected and making sure that the places it is exported to are equipped to process it.
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