Jubilee's Sh17 billion laptop project is bound to increase e-waste
—
discarded electrical or electronic devices and appliances —
in a country ill-equipped to handle it. A law to regulate take-back of
end-of-life products
has not yet been made. Extended producer responsibility is not clearly implemented. Separation of e-waste from solid waste
for effective disposal
is not being done. And awareness on e-waste's harmful effects on the environment, health and safety is not prevalent.
Many Kenyans buy second-hand electronics with a short lifespan due to poverty, low-purchasing power and low income per capita. Moreover, donors use the country as a dumping ground, with an estimated 15,000 tonnes of used computers and mobile phones shipped to Kenya every year, flooding in from the West, especially the US.
These lead to thousands of tonnes of dead cells phones, broken computers, printers, refrigerators, analogue television sets and useless transmitters. It was 3,000 tonnes in 2007, according
the Kenya Status Report, but
with mobile penetration rate hitting 80.5 per cent, it's bound to be much higher now.
When e-waste is not disposed of properly, contaminants get in contact with waters and food chains, causing negative health effects through skin contact and inhalation.
So as the government introduces 1.2 million tablets to the 22,000 public primary schools, experts say it runs the risk of making e-waste management even harder. Some
150 teachers are being trained and all schools connected to electricity, but where will all the e-waste go?
Benson Ochieng, director of the
Institute for Law and Environmental Governance,
questions how the country will handle tonnes of e-waste produced when "in the first place,
it does not have the capacity to manage ordinary waste".
"We do not have a policy on e-waste management, which means the government has no clear position," he told the Star.
According to a study by University of Nairobi's Ibrahim Otieno and Elijah Omwenga, the government agencies in charge of e-waste have limited capacity manage it and lack synergy, as they are not co-ordinating their work. The study is titled:
E-Waste Management in Kenya: Challenges and Opportunities (Vol. 6, No. 12 December 2015).
The two researchers urge the government to take a multi-sectoral and collaborative approach to be effective.
"E-waste management has not been given the priority it deserves at a national level. The resources and commitment towards solving the problems associated with e-waste are inadequate. Moreover, sufficient formal training has not been provided to deal with e-waste management, so it is largely handled arbitrarily," they said.
The researchers found that solid waste collected by county governments is not separated into different streams to facilitate separation of e-waste and deal with its disposal in effective ways.
They called for the development of a proper waste collection system in all counties, where waste is separated at the source to effectively address this problem.
The researchers further found that those dealing with e-waste do not know the health hazards they are getting exposed to, as they dismantle them to get what they would use as spare parts.
Ochieng says e-waste dumping is likely to rise and its destruction will hurt the environment and Kenyans' health.
He said a considerable chunk of old and even refurbished products are being brought into the country by NGOs, as donations to schools and other government institutions.
Ochieng says developed countries export an unknown quantity of e-waste to poor countries.
According to the Communications Authority of Kenya July-September 2014 quarter report, the number of mobile subscriptions increased to 32.8 million up from 32.2 million, during the last quarter, representing a 1.6 per cent growth.
The number of new subscriptions registered during the period was 522,435, compared to 416,390 new subscriptions recorded during the preceding quarter.
Huge chunks of dead mobile phones are being held by Kenyans in their homes, while others are sold at a throw-away prices to people masquerading as phone repairers.
The CAK admitted that e-waste remains a problem, as the lifespan of some electronics is well set. The regulatory authority approves and accepts communications equipment meant for use in the country, while protecting consumer rights in the communications environment.
CAK director general Francis Wangusi said when the country migrated from analogue to digital platform last year, a lot of e-waste was accumulated.
"More waste came from the migration. It is a challenge, but we have partnered with the
National Environment Management Authority and other agencies to manage waste," he said.
Safaricom, one of the largest telephone
communication companies, said last year that it had collected 220 tonnes of e-waste since it began the e-waste caravan programme.
In its Sustainability Report 2015, the company said more than 170 tonnes of e-waste was collected last year.
“The dramatic increase in waste collected in comparison to 2014 was the result of the successful awareness campaign and collection road shows,” the report states.
Safaricom said 32 towns were visited during the campaign and residents taught about the importance of proper disposal and recycling, while their e-waste was collected.
Ochieng says the manufacturers should have been brought on board and played a role in mitigating the effects of e-waste.
"Other companies have incentives to take back their old electronics, as they will have specific collection points," he said.
Deforestation is another problem troubling environmentalists and health experts. Though electronics are largely produced abroad, the process involves a lot of carbon emission, which poses other environmental problems that wind up affecting developing countries.
According to the Global Information Society Watch, extraction of
gold —
used in computers to ensure rapid and accurate transmission of digital information —
produces 5.1 million tonnes of carbon dioxide. Other components like copper, cobalt, tin, indium, silver, palladium, platinum and ruthenium account for an annual CO2 emission level of 23.4 million tonnes, almost 1/1000 of the world’s CO2 emissions. Further emissions arise from steel, nickel and aluminium.
Forests act as a major source of carbon removal from the atmosphere through a process known as carbon sequestration.
Forests, along with their associated soils, contain two to three times the amount of carbon in the atmosphere. Yet deforestation is rising in Kenya.
In 1963, forests covered 10 per cent of the country's land, and by 2006 that had dropped to 1.7 per cent. This halts the positive carbon storage effects and leads to global warming.