Nigeria, others to take delivery of $20bn used electronics

There is fear by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) that Nigeria, Ghana, Togo and some developing countries would become dumping grounds for used electronics valued at $20 billion by 2017.
In its report, UNEP said that the countries will host some 50 million tons of electronics such as athode ray, televisions, fridge, computers, mobile phones and freezers with ozone depleting substance.
It listed the other countries to include Indonesia, India, Malaysia, Pakistan, Vietna, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Benin and Senegal. The electronics are being shipped from Europe, North America and Asia to Africa. It said that Europe and North America were the largest producers of electronic waste.
According to the report, UNEP explained that each ton is worth around $500. It added that 90 per cent of world’s electronic waste was either being illegally dumped or in those countries.
The report stressed that the global waste market sector from collection to recycling was estimated at $410 billion a year, excluding a very large informal sector.
The report said that final destinations of the waste vary across Africa as Ghana and Nigeria bear the brunt of the waste delivery.
The UNEP report also pointed out that in 2012 alone, an estimated 500 containers of second hand electronics were imported to Nigeria every month from Europe, with each holding 500 used computers.
It further noted that over 75 per cent of the containers came from Europe, approximately 15 per cent from Asia, five per cent from African ports, mainly Morocco and five per cent from North America.
The report revealed that the quantity of goods, such as electronics and laptops, being dumped reached 41 million ton worth $19 billion in 2015. UN Under-Secretary-General, Achim Steiner, said: “We are witnessing an unprecedented amount of electronic waste rolling out over the world. Not only does it account for a large portion of the world’s non-recycled waste mountain, but it also poses a growing threat to human health and the environment due to the hazardous elements it contains.
“The export of hazardous waste, which includes electronics from inside the European Union to non-European Union states, is expressly forbidden, but criminals will often falsely declare it as second-hand goods in order to have it shipped off to developing countries after they have been contracted to safely dispose of it.”
The under-secretary general added that mixture of large- and small-scale smuggling techniques were used all over the world through major smuggling hubs in South Asia One of the major causes of the waste problem is inconsistency in regulations between exporting and importing countries, especially around the definition of hazardous waste, the report explained.
Steiner further said: “E-waste recycling is flourishing in many parts of the world. South Asia and Southeast Asia appear to be major regional destinations, including, but not limited to, China, Hong Kong, India, Pakistan and Vietnam. In West Africa, common, but not limited destinations are Ghana, Nigeria and Benin, among others.”