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By Henry Leineweber
The focus of many e-waste export scandals, the African nation of Ghana has completed an assessment of e-waste imports and processing in the country and released its final report.
The Ghana E-Waste Country Assessment finds that virtually all electronics used in country are imported from Europe, North America and East Asia, totaling 215,000 tons. Of that number, approximately 70 percent are used items, 15 percent of which are non-resellable. An additional 20 percent arrive in the country in non-working, but repairable, condition.
Of the 280,000 tons of obsolete electronics actually generated in Ghana annually (2009 figures) 57 percent are repaired locally and an additional 8 percent are stored. However, 34 percent of scrap electronics generated in Ghana are handled by the informal recycling sector, which the report says include the now infamous processing techniques of hand dismantling and open burning.
There is currently no infrastructure in the country to process material safely once it has reached its end-of-life, meaning when items can no longer be repaired, they ultimately end up being processed in this environmentally-harmful manner. While the majority of e-scrap that arrives in Ghana is in serviceable or usable condition, because of the country's lack of infrastructure, it ultimately becomes electronic waste after several more years of use.
The report concludes with several policy recommendations for the country, including new import standards and legal framework, better education on the dangers of current processing techniques and the establishment of a formal recycling infrastructure.
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