South Africa Said Leading the Way to African E-Waste Management Market
Lack of capacity and resources for recycling e-waste is hampering efforts in most African countries, said Environmental Technologies Analyst Derrick Chikanga of Frost & Sullivan. Unable to recycle all computer components, for instance, they must send hazardous materials from not only African computers but those shipped in from Europe to places like Malaysia for handling, he said. Nevertheless, the recycling market is starting to develop, with South Africa taking the lead, Chikanga and others said.
Sign up for a free preview to unlock the rest of this article
Export Compliance Daily combines U.S. export control news, foreign border import regulation and policy developments into a single daily information service that reliably informs its trade professional readers about important current issues affecting their operations.
South Africa’s market is growing steadily, driven by the e-Waste Association of South Africa (eWASA), Chikanga said. It collects and recycles around 32,000 tons of e-waste annually, he said. Tanzania, Uganda and Nigeria are also actively involved in recycling obsolete computer equipment, he said.
eWASA has an established network of members that collect, refurbish, dismantle and recycle the full spectrum of waste electrical and electronic equipment, said Research and Development Manager Lene Ecroignard. With more e-waste management companies joining each month, “the network is expanding all the time,” she said. Some manufacturers have also come in as members and more are expected to join this year, she said.
eWASA’s recycling system will be largely funded by membership fees and an advanced recycling fee regime administered similarly to those of WEEE Forum systems, Ecroignard told us. All the manufacturers that have attended eWASA industry meetings agree in principle to the fee, which will assist with the non-profitable part of the e-waste business, she said.
South Africa doesn’t have specific e-waste legislation and must look to a range of environmental, health and safety laws for answers, an August 2009 report for eWASA said. The confusion is made worse by the fact that the laws are enforced by different government departments, so there’s no uniform approach either to e-waste or hazardous waste, it said. Recent legislation listing which activities require a waste management license has made the situation somewhat -- but not much -- clearer for e-waste recyclers, and there’s little guidance from authorities on what’s required of affected waste generators and who should deal with license applications, it said.
In terms of government awareness and involvement, “industry as a whole (and not only certain members of the IT industry) and the public the situation is still far from being as satisfactory as, for instance, in the EU or Switzerland,” the report said. They have detailed e-waste legislation and, more importantly, extended producer responsibility and mandatory return systems, it said.
The absence of clear e-waste rules or policies on the national, regional and local levels is a “definite obstacle” to confronting the problem comprehensively, the report said. Until there’s a coherent approach, e-waste management will remain a voluntary imitative by certain organizations, nongovernmental organizations or individuals, it said.
Major South African cities currently establish recycling points for computers from which waste companies collect and process the equipment, Chikanga said. Alternatively, some large companies gather up and dispose of their own e-waste, he said. But there’s a lack of public awareness about how to dispose of obsolete electronics goods, and transportation costs for shipping bulky items to recycling plants can be high, he said.
Nevertheless, the market is emerging, Chikanga said. South African businesses are taking the initiative to bring in key players from the sub-Saharan region, he said. Things are expected to take off as countries cooperate on e-waste handling, he said.
The WEEE Forum itself isn’t collaborating with anyone in Africa but some of its members have been to Ghana and Nigeria to see how e-waste is improperly treated, said WEEE Forum Secretary General Pascal Leroy. “There are many initiatives in preparation, I reckon, but few that have come to fruition,” he added.