Is e-waste a sleeping monster? Why should South Africans be wary of electronic waste?

Electronic waste or e-waste is the largest growing waste stream in South Africa. With increasing dependency on electronic appliances, the waste from electronics or electrical equipments also increases. Sreerupa Sanyal investigates into the current situation of this increasing, potentially harmful waste stream in South Africa.

Imagine a cluster of small huts with women cooking in open fires and infants rocking in makeshift cradles.

Further imagine, these huts surrounded by vast, barren tracts of lands, the size of three football fields. Thousands of tons of scrap fill the barren land and some hundred people are working amongst these heaps of trash.

Scrap collectors at the Hatherly landfill in Pretoria

Fires are burning here and there and toxic black smoke rises thick and fast in the sky.  A heavy stench of rotting vegetables, burnt tyres and circuit boards hang in the air. The churn of heavy truck tyres and scarp crushers crushing the discarded waste fill the atmosphere.

This is a reality that can be observed in the Hatherly landfill near Pretoria East.

Five years ago, there were no settlements near the landfill. Most of the scrap consisted of rotten vegetables, plastic, glass and paper, which were mostly dumped in the soil.

Hatherly landfill from above a dump site in Hatherly

These days circuit boards, refrigerators, computer screens, printer cartridges, broken cellular phones and all sorts of small and large electrical appliances far outnumber rotten vegetables, plastics and glass.

Electronic waste or e-waste is the new form of waste stream that is rapidly growing in South Africa’s major landfills. With no legislation in place and extremely low level of awareness, e-waste is mostly handled by informal recyclers such as those in Hatherly. This increases the potential risk to their health and surroundings. [Read more in http://concernforewaste.blogspot.com/2014/11/informal-recyclers-backbone-of-e-waste.html]

A flowchart below represents the current e-waste management system in South Africa:

According to an estimate by Dr. Koebu Khalema of the Africa Institute, (http://africainstitute.info/) South Africa recycles less than 25 per cent of the 5 million tons of e-waste it generates every year. The National Waste Management Act brought into force in 2008 makes no specific mention of electronic waste. There are no legislations in place regulating the activities of e-waste recyclers. Also there are no inventory of how much e-waste is generated within the territorial borders of the country or how much of it is recycled.

This increase in e-waste and the absence of data should be seen in the backdrop of the fact that, in March 2014, according to a Business Tech report, more smart phones were sold in the country than newspaper. About 40 million South Africans have access to the internet and new vehicle sales are growing at an annual rate of almost 12 per cent each year. Consumer electronics in South African homes amount to anything between one to three million tones, most of which is likely to enter the waste stream in the next 5-10 years. [Read more in http://concernforewaste.blogspot.com/2014/11/e-waste-ethical-concern-for-information.html]

Currently all e-waste is bracketed under the term ‘hazardous waste’.

Most e-waste recyclers argue that categorizing e-waste as ‘hazardous’ is misleading and creates fear in the minds of people when they hear about e-waste recycling.

Metals to be extracted from circuit boards

According to Ulze van Dyk, Director Africa E-Waste: “A computer monitor sitting in one corner of a room is not hazardous. Electronic goods become hazardous only when it is broken down and crushed without the proper technical know-how.”

South African recyclers specializing in electronic waste send most of their waste to European countries to extract the precious metals found in discarded circuit boards and central processing units because local companies either do not have the technical know-how or the technology available is at an infant stage. [Read more in http://concernforewaste.blogspot.com/2014/11/the-science-behind-recycling.html]

Almost all formal e-waste recyclers and information technology practitioners feel awareness about electronic waste, their generation and management is the need of the hour. One of the major reasons why e-waste is not regarded as a ‘priority waste’ is because of the lack of knowledge about e-waste.

Prof. Marlene Holmner, specializing in electronic waste and a professor of information technology from the University of Pretoria says: “South Africa is neglecting the issue of e-waste at its own peril. If nothing is done now, e-waste will prove to be the major environment and health hazard of the future.” 

E waste: An ethical concern for information age?

Piles of e-waste at DESCO

Many academics, especially in developing economies, are pondering on the question of whether electronic waste and its proper management should be placed as an ethical concern.

Most developing countries lag in the management of electronic waste. Despite major international treaties such as the Basel Convention (read more in Key Term of Reference) electronic waste is still exported to many such countries as India, China, Nigeria, Ghana and the DRC. In fact the world's largest electronic waste dump site is situated in Accra, Ghana.

Prof. Marlene Holmner of the University of Pretoria says that as there is no awareness among consumers of electronic goods, electronic waste is therefore is not considered a ‘priority waste’ in South Africa and hence its recycling and management is hardly given any importance.

John van Coller, from DESCO, one of the largest electronic recyclers in Gauteng, echoes the same sentiment.

"Currently the percentage of e-waste that is being generated in South Africa is wholly unknown."

DESCO receives almost 1000 tons of e-waste per month chief among which are computer monitors, mother boards, Internal Processing Units (IPUs) and even ATM machines.

Says van Coller: "The amount of e-waste we receive and recycle is like a drop in the ocean."

Back in 2008, when legislation for waste management was brought into force in the country, there had been an idea of making an inventory of e-waste that is generated within the borders of South Africa. According to van Coller: "We were really excited by the idea of an e-waste inventory. Unfortunately the Dept of Environmental Affairs never gave the go-ahead and it was never done."

Queries from the Department have remained unanswered.

According to Prof. Eric Achankeng from the University of Adelaide, South Africa suffers from a situation where there is a major vacuum related to e-waste management. Writing in an academic paper, Globalization, Urbanization and Municipal Solid Waste Management in Africa, he writes, "… there is no extant mechanism in the country with regard to proper management and disposal of electronic waste."

Agbogbolshie dump site: the largest e-waste dump site in the world.

E-waste management is rapidly becoming an ethical concern among many information technology practitioners. According to Prof. Achankeng: "E-waste management and recycling should not only be treated as an environmental concern but also as an ethical concern. When consumers buy electronic goods, it must be their moral, social and ethical obligation to inquire into what happens to the goods when it reaches the end of its life cycle."

Holmner and van Coller feel that in the particular situation of South Africa, the awareness about e-waste is so insignificant that far from seeing it as an ethical problem, both consumers and corporate have to first view it as a problem.

The majority of e-waste management is currently in the hands of informal recyclers. According to Prof. Holmner, informal recyclers often do not have the education nor the skill to properly dispose off electronic waste especially waste containing radio-active and other harmful metals. These often end up in the various landfills around the country thus posing a major health hazard to people living in the surrounding areas.

Piles of scrap in Hatherly landfill, Pretoria

In an academic paper written in 2010, Jinglei Yu and Yang Yan from Nankai University writes that since 2000, Asia Pacific and Middle/East Africa saw the fastest growth of PC sales while the developed regions of North America and Western Europe lagged behind. According to the paper, by 2030, the number of obsolete PCs in developing regions will double that of developed regions with 400-700 million units in developing countries compared to 200-300 million in developed regions.

Numbers like the above, according to Prof. Holmner are indeed a cause for concern.

“There is a dire need of legislation in the country with regards to e-waste, but even more importantly there is a dire need to educate people to the effects of electronic waste. Awareness about e-waste among consumers and companies should be our first priority.”