According to Consumers International, British charities and waste brokers are dumping what they call “e-waste” into developing countries.
They say that as a way of getting rid of old, broken PC’s the waste brokers and some charities are sending them to developing countries like Ghana and Nigeria under the false pretence of donating them to schools and hospitals as working, second hand equipment, when the truth of the matter is that only one in four actually work!
It is not only Brittan that has been accused of dumping equipment. Countries like the U.S and some European countries have also been exporting useless PC’s.
According to a campaigner from Consumers International, Luke Upchurch, “It is against the law to export toxic e-waste to the developing world. More than six million tonnes of e-waste goes missing per year from Europe and large amounts of this are appearing in places such as Ghana and Nigeria, which makes a mockery of the whole process. One local monitor in Nigeria said that 500,000 of used PCs get sent in containers to Lagos every month. Only one in four is in working order.
“Unscrupulous waste brokers and even some charities are taking some of these computers to these countries. However, you do get good services such as Computer Aid which recycle and re-use these computers within the law but others do not.
“You are getting people sending unworkable waste to Africa. It then ends up in refuse dumps around Accra [capital of Ghana] filling up landfill and swamping villages.”
Not only are these unusable computers filing up land fill sites in the developing countries but children are trying to melt them down to get at the valuable metals found inside and in turn are breathing in the toxic fumes they send out.
The Environmental Agency are working towards a better system to police the export of second hand PC equipment, as genuine, working equipment is extremely useful to these countries however, it is not always easy to do so according to Adrian Harding, police advisory to the agency. He also said “The UK is not the main source of illegal equipment going to places such as Nigeria. But there is some equipment leaving here landing up in developing countries.
“A bulk of the equipment comes from the United States but no doubt from Europe as well.”
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