The informal means of collecting electronic waste is a threat to Nigeria’s billion naira e-waste industry as well as the well-being of the country’s citizens, Hinckley Group, Nigeria-based IT services and e-waste recycling company, says.
According to Andrian Clews, managing director Hinckley Group, the formal and responsible recycling companies in Nigeria are not enjoying the monetary value of the industry because some informal recyclers who also use the services of informal collectors are extracting the valuable products and sending it outside the country.
“The informal recyclers export these valuable items and leave behind only the negative value. The hazard components like the plastics, the screens – the things that harm the environment,” Clew told Businessday.
Electronic waste or e-waste describes discarded electrical or electronic devices. Used electronics that are destined for refurbishment, reuse, resale, salvage recycling through material recovery, or disposal are also considered e-waste.
The most commonly recycled parts of electronics are PCBS (printed circuit boards), which have all the precious metals. The collectors normally take out the copper wires that are of high value and they can strip the metal down to copper and sell it to other users.
There are parts of a computer or a mobile phone that are lucrative but then there are parts that are not, like plastics, etc. So only the shells of a monitor are found in a dump or the keys for example of a keyboard.
E-waste is also not restricted to computers, cell phones, etc. But it is also about things like refrigerators or washing machines, toasters, and vacuum cleaners. This is all categorised under e-waste.
Read also: New standard for recycled plastic seen saving over N1.8trn yearly for Nigeria
A lot of refrigerators, for example, that are discarded in developed countries are shipped to emerging countries. Because of the way they are handled, stored and shipped, it damages the compressor, it damages the mechanism in a way that they are really either inefficient and energy-guzzling or they just don’t cool enough so they then end up in the trash. The same thing applies to a lot of other electronic appliances.
According to Hinckley Group, 99 percent of Nigeria’s e-waste is handled through informal collection network, sometimes described as scavengers.
“If you walk around the informal recycling hubs in Lagos, you will see people using their bare hands to tear apart electronics, trying to extract valuable materials and this is very dangerous. The problem is actually at an epidemic level and the informal recycles also make things worse by dumping the items that are deadly to the environment,” Clews said.
According to the Lagos State Environmental Protection Agency (LASEPA), the regulatory body committed to improving the environment, there are over 10,000 informal recyclers in the state.
“At Ojota alone we recorded over 3,000 of them during e-waste awareness and we are engaging them to collet ewaste and recycle in an environment-friendly manner,” Olabisi Oyekule, assistant director at LAEPA, told Businessday.
In August 2019, the agency sealed some illegal e-waste factories, including that of two Chinese, said to have emitted toxic substances in Ikeja. The factories, located at 19, Sule Abuka, Street, Opebi, Lagos and 15, Adekunle Fajuyi Street, GRA, Ikeja were said to be owned and managed by Chinese.
“I will not be able to pay the same amount as the Chinese guy who takes only the valuable items in a phone for example because I have a cost which he is not incurring,” Clews said.
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