WE MUST ADDRESS E-WASTE PROBLEM AS A MATTER OF URGENCY

The number of mobile phone users in Kenya rose to 30.5 million by June 2013 according to a Communications Commission of Kenya report. The number of personal computers has equally been on the increase in the recent past. This speaks a lot for a country with a population of about 40 million people. Do we ever stop to ponder on what happens to our old phones, ipads, laptops and tab- lets or do we quickly opt for latest gadgets without giving it a second thought? Well the truth be told, they are most probably at the moment piled up in a land fill somewhere in the country or overseas and causing havoc to the environment in the form of e-waste. This poses great risk to the environment and waste of resource that can be refurbished, re- cycled or extracted and re-used.

E-waste is hazardous to the environment; it contains toxic heavy metals such as lead, cadmium, and copper, which could be detrimental to the environment.  UNEP acknowledges that e-waste is one of the fastest growing waste in both developed and developing countries. E-waste produced globally is three times more than all other domestic waste. National Environment Management Authority (NEMA) gives the annual estimates for e-waste from Kenya as 18,000 tonnes; these come from refrigerators, television sets, printers, personal computers and mobile phones. Out of these, only about 605.2 tonnes of e-waste are refurbished or recycled. This might not look like a lot compared with countries like India and China which have up to 500,000 and two million tonnes of domestic e-waste while also dealing with e-waste imports from developing countries.

Yet in light of projects like Laptop project aimed to provide laptops to an estimated 1.3 million pupils in primary schools starting this year, Konza techno city, local manufacture of electronic devices and promotion of use of ICT in all sectors and other economic activities planned to realize Vision 2030, the question we should ask ourselves is how will we manage the e-waste?  I believe that more research to assess the challenges and opportunities provided by e-wastes as well as setting up of e-waste management infrastructure is vital for us at this stage. NEMA has developed e-waste management guidelines which emphasize on reducing, repair, reuse and recycle in order to minimize e- waste, however, we have no national policy to regulate the management of e-waste in the country. East African Compliant Recycling facility is the only plant which handles e-waste recycling in the country. This is, how- ever, carried out in small scale and needs scaling up.

Switzerland has superb track record in e-waste management that we can learn from.  The Swiss law on waste management stresses the polluter pays principle and has encouraged the reduction, reuse and recycling of waste. This places both the physical as well as the financial responsibility of an environmentally sound disposal of end-of-life electronics with the manufacturers and importers of these products. With time, they have realized that the first step in e-waste management takes place when buying new electric or electronic products. Consumers are charged an advance recycling fee when buying any electronic products which caters for all processes required for a safe disposal at the end of its life.  Again they emphasize on manufacture of green electronic and electric equipments.

Turning trash into cash presents an opportunity we can exploit to create jobs, expand our wealth base, and re- cover secondary resources while also protecting our environment all at the same time. This will require us to innovatively look into ways of dealing with e-waste, we need not wait till e-wastes clog our cities causing a sore sight; the time to act is now.