By Ramadhan Rajab
Kenya is facing serious environmental and health problems due to increasing hazardous waste from electronic devices, the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) has warned.
Titled, ‘Recycling-From E-waste Resources,’ the Unep report listed old desktops and laptops computers, printers, mobile phones, pagers, digital photos and music devices, refrigerators, toys, and television as main sources of wastes.
"Without immediate action to ensure safe and proper collection and disposal of materials, many developing countries face the specter of hazardous e-waste mountains with dire consequences for the environment and public health," the report warns.
And the problem could worsen in the next 10 years with sales of electronic devices set to rise sharply.
"Developing countries will be reeling under untold burden if e-waste recycling is left to the vagaries of the informal sector, unless action is taken to collect and recycle material," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said.
Decisive action
Statistics from the UN report underline the urgency of quick action. Global e-waste is growing by a whopping 40 million tonnes a year. "It is necessary to establish an ambitious, formal and regulated process for collecting and managing e-waste by setting up large and efficient facilities. But by taking action and planning forward, countries can turn e-challenge into an e-opportunity," Steiner said.
He spoke during the launch of the Unep report at the three-day meeting of the Basel Convention ahead of the Unep Governing Council meeting in Nusa Dua Bali in Indonesia.
The report, released on Monday, was timed to coincide with a weeklong UN conference in Bali, on the topic, which brings together officials and environmentalists from more than 100 countries. Africa E-waste management is central in the discussions.
According to the National Environment and Management Authority, e-waste has become the fastest growing segments of the country’s total refuse. The country is exposed to this pollution because of failure to manage her waste, and upsurge in dumping of electronics products due to growing demand for affordable gadgets.
Strange diseases
Kenya will experience long-term and costly environmental damage whose impact could be behind the emergence of new diseases, change in weather patterns, and food insecurity.
The country’s less formal dumping sites are home to electronic gadgets with lethal toxins. In Nairobi, Recycling for Charities websites, says the impact of this care-free disposal of e-waste is being felt in Nairobi’s Dandora Estate.
Dandora is Kenya’s largest dumpsite, receiving over around 4,000 tonnes of garbage daily.
With unregulated means of disposal, Kenyans have resorted to burning trash as their best and only means of disposing e-waste, not knowing that by incinerating these gadgets, they relasing toxic chemicals and metals into the air and ground.
Experts say exposure to chemicals from e-waste — including lead, cadmium, mercury, chromium and polybrominated biphenyl — could damage the brain and nervous system, affect the kidneys and liver, and cause birth defects.
Globally, reports and campaigning by environmental groups have spurred a flurry of international agreements to regulate the global trade in hazardous waste.
More than 150 countries, Kenya included have signed up to the UN Basel Convention, an international treaty which came into effect in 1992 and aims to minimise the generation and movement of electronic waste across borders.
