eWaste South African case study Overview of findings

1
e-Waste South African case study Overview of
findings
Association for Progressive Communications Open
Research
Alan Finlay alan_at_openresearch.co.za www.openresea
rch.co.za
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What is e-waste?

• Includes computers, televisions, monitors, cell
  phones, pagers, microwave ovens, hand-held
  electronic devices, etc.
•  
• Hazardous materials include lead, cadmium,
  mercury, plastics, chromium, mercury

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Statistics

• Africa is the worlds fastest growing market for
  cell phones. 51.8-million. Projected growth of
  the number of subscribers puts it anywhere
  between 100- and 200-million by the year 2010
  (ITU, 2004)
•  
• TVs in Africa 62-million radios 200-million
  (Jensen, 2003)
•  
• Evidence of higher-than-anticipated imports of
  old technology into Africa is surfacing.
  According to the Basel Action Network, as many as
  400-thousand second-hand PCs are imported through
  Lagos in Nigeria each month (Warwick, 2005)
•  
• 1.2 to 1.5-million computers enter the South
  African market each year (Lombard, 2004)
• Cell phone users in the country are projected to
  be 19-million by 2006

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Legislation

• Basel Convention
• Absence of legislation dealing specifically with
  e-waste
• Some disagreement about whether or not this is
  necessary, or whether sectors can self-regulate
• DEAT now considers e-waste a priority waste
  stream

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e-Waste estimates

• About 70 of the countrys e-waste in storage
• Most of this held by the government
• Represents about 10-20 thousand tons of e-waste
• Expected to double in 10 years time to 30-40
  thousand tons

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Disposal
Differences of opinion on extent of problem of
disposing e-waste on non-hazardous
landfills Some recycling operations result in
storage of hazardous waste because of cost of
disposal Cost of disposal may upset financial
model of current recyclers

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Export and import

• Some importing of e-waste. Potential
• for this to escalate
• A lot of exporting of raw e-waste with
• Asia and Europe being prime
• destinations
• Universal Recycling says as much of
• 80 of cleaned material is exported

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Activities

• Basel Convention Regional Centre
• (Pretoria)
• E-Waste Working Group eWASA
• Many ICT multinationals have shown
• little interest in e-waste in South Africa

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Threats

• Public awareness
• Time
• Buy-in
• Economic model for current recyclers
• Capacity of current recyclers
• Potential threat of small-scale electrochemical
  processes being introduced