PROSA E-waste

In the past few years, the environmental debate about the disposal of e-waste became increasingly focused on the implications for developing countries and emerging markets. This development is a result of the fact that most of these countries have no proper infrastructure, but are confronted with growing amounts of e-waste.

With respect to West Africa, the discussion was primarily initiated by the film "The digital dump" produced by the NGO Basel Action Network in 2005. On the basis of a field visit to Lagos, Nigeria, the film draws attention to the growing imports of second-hand equipment from industrialized countries, associating them with improper treatment in the end-of-life stage. In 2008, a Greenpeace study finally documented the adverse impact of the informal e-waste recycling in Ghana on the environment. Since that time, many of the existing shortcomings have been covered by national and international media who supplemented their reports by appropriate images. A structured analysis of the scope of activities, as well as of the economic drivers and the socio-economic conditions, however, had not been undertaken so far. Such an analysis, however, is of great importance, since, on the one hand, national authorities reflect on a stronger regulation of the sector, and, on the other hand, also stakeholders of other countries consider strengthening regulation and control in the transboundary movements of second-hand goods.

Together with local partners, Oeko-Institut carried out a structured analysis of the socio-economic impacts in Ghana and Nigeria, providing advice to local governments on the development of effective e-waste strategies. In terms of methodology, the evaluation was based on Social LCA, a tool used within PROSA.

In the framework of the projects, the following studies and documents have already been published and are available for download:

 

Project report Ghana (2 MB)Information sheet on the UNEP E-waste Africa Project (1 MB)/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/CARE_INNOVATIONS_11_2010_Manhart.pdf

Presentation of the project on the CARE Innovations symposium 2010 (Manhart) (3 MB)

Presentation of the project on the CARE Innovations symposium 2010 (Prakash) (2 MB)