Division of Environment and Sustainability, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology , Kowloon, Hong Kong.
J Air Waste Manag Assoc. 2020 Jul;70(7):659-669. doi: 10.1080/10962247.2020.1769769.
African countries are among the prime destinations of electronic waste (e-waste) also called Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and have been challenged with the management of its environmental and health impacts. This paper was carried out to understand the e-waste sector and policy responses in selected African countries. Data for the study were generated from sources; such as policy documents, legislations and literature. Findings show that the import of WEEE is on rising in Africa while landfill and incineration continued to be widely used handling approaches. Countries studied lack WEEE specific national policies and stringent policy instruments to enforce proper collection and recycling systems. Despite the start-ups in emerging recycling operations, a major gap is that informal e-waste actors dominate the e-waste chain from collection to material extraction and refurbish activities through rudimentary tools that cannot detect toxic elements. Tackling the problem demands integrated multi-actor interventions with multiple stakeholders to reduce WEEE inflow on one hand, and ramping up safe recycling capacity on the other hand.
The article attempts to explain the electronic waste problem in African countries, the nature of existing policy responses and limitations, and ways forward to address policy gaps. Electronic waste is a global problem but with local impacts with the hazardous substances it contains. Because E-waste is still not well recognized health and environment threat, less attention is given for the problem especially in African countries making the uneducated youth more vulnerable to toxic elements. The epistemic community, hence, is supposed to write about it and develop knowledge so that evidences for policy decision making would grow. The focus is on Africa because the problem needs special attention. E-waste has been dumped in Africa for long time and people who work with such waste are mostly uneducated and vulnerable to toxic substances. This problem requires certain attention in the scholarly and policy community at the international level.
非洲国家是电子废物（也称为电子电气设备废物（WEEE））的主要目的地之一，并且一直面临着管理其环境和健康影响的挑战。本文旨在了解选定非洲国家的电子废物行业和政策应对措施。本研究的数据来自政策文件、法规和文献等来源。研究结果表明，非洲的 WEEE 进口量呈上升趋势，而垃圾填埋场和焚烧仍被广泛用作处理方法。研究国家缺乏针对 WEEE 的国家特定政策和严格的政策工具，无法执行适当的收集和回收系统。尽管新兴回收业务有所起步，但一个主要的差距是，非正式的电子废物行为者主导了从收集到材料提取和翻新活动的电子废物链，使用的是无法检测有毒元素的简陋工具。解决这个问题需要多方利益相关者进行综合干预，一方面减少 WEEE 的流入，另一方面提高安全回收能力。
本文试图解释非洲国家的电子废物问题、现有政策应对措施的性质和局限性，以及解决政策差距的方法。电子废物是一个全球性问题，但对当地有影响，因为其中含有危险物质。由于电子废物对健康和环境的威胁尚未得到充分认识，因此对该问题的关注较少，特别是在非洲国家，这使得未受过教育的青年更容易受到有毒物质的侵害。因此，知识界应该对此进行研究并开发知识，以便为政策决策提供更多证据。本文关注非洲，是因为这个问题需要特别关注。电子废物在非洲已经被倾倒了很长时间，处理这些废物的人大多没有受过教育，容易受到有毒物质的侵害。这个问题需要在国际学术和政策界得到一定的关注。
