The WEEE Centre primarily sources e-waste through collection campaigns aimed at individual households and businesses and engages the informal sector as e-waste collectors. In addition, awareness raising initiatives are held at various levels throughout the community, in schools and community centres, through dedicated events and conferences and through meetings with various stakeholders, including the local and national governments. The Centre has two parallel systems, one for repair and refurbishment and the other for dismantling and recycling. The equipment requiring only minor repair or refurbishment are repaired and then donated to resource-deprived community information access centres or learning institutions. End-of-life equipment is recycled at the Centre. Locally recyclable materials, such as aluminium, copper and other metals and hard and soft plastics, are sent to local smelters for future use in locally manufactured products. The fractions that cannot be locally handled are sent to international partner recyclers in Europe who have the capability and capacity to handle the difficult elements and are in compliance with international and domestic regulations and laws governing e-waste disposal.
© Griet Hendrickx/ Worldloop
Safe dismantling at the WEEE Centre
The WEEE Centre currently operates with five full time staff and 13 day labourers, whose work hours vary with the collection volume. All workers receive technical training on best practices and sustainable solutions in the collection, dismantling and recycling of electronic and electrical waste in order to protect the workers and the environment. Additional practitioner and business management training necessary to meet the Centre’s marketing, HR and accounting needs, including cash flow management, is also made available throughout the year.
The funding that WorldLoop provides is linked to the Centre’s collection targets, since collection is the largest challenge and one of the primary drivers for a financially sustainable e-waste business. An average of 12 to 15 tonnes of e-waste is collected per month. The WEEE Centre has already reached 73% self-sustainability after its first two years of operations based on the resale value
of devices tested and eligible for reuse, locally sold raw materials (metals, plastics) and internationally recycled fractions (printed circuit boards, SIM cards and hard drives). WorldLoop’s financial involvement decreased incrementally as self-generating revenues increased and has been reoriented to the collection and treatment of hazardous and non-valuable waste until a local financing mechanism and legislation are implemented.
As is case with all WorldLoop projects, the financing requirements to cover the collection and treatment costs of non-valuable fractions are currently being addressed through the e-resource certificate programme. 7
East African Compliant Recycling Company (EACR)
In October 2011, Hewlett-Packard (HP) opened the EACR in Mombasa, Kenya in partnership with Camara Education, an ‘Education through ICT’ NGO working with disadvantaged communities in Africa.8 This facility accepted end-of-life IT assets from public and private sector customers, consumers and the informal sector and operated to international health, safety and environmental standards. Professional recycler Reclaimed Appliances (UK) Ltd, took over EACR in 2012 and expanded the scope to ‘everything with a plug or battery’ and to all types of plastics. In 2013, HP formed a Public Private Partnership with German Bank DEG and Reclaimed Appliances to secure funding for relocation of the EACR to a larger facility in Nairobi.9 Following this, WorldLoop and EACR entered into a partnership specifically to support the collection and treatment of CRT monitors. EACR restructured in 2015, with ownership passing to local stakeholders.
In addition, members of the E-Waste Solutions Alliance for Africa10 have assisted in sourcing funding for EACR.
This Alliance helps to raise awareness of the need for standards and also developing capacity in government and other key stakeholders for environmentally safe and economically sustainable e-waste management.
The EACR facility sources its e-waste from eight registered collection centres located all over the Kenyan territory with a goal to expand to neighbouring countries where import into Kenya can be approved by the government.
Many of the collection centres are sponsored by Dell or HP, covering upfront costs such as personal protective equipment (PPE), weighing equipment and containers.
Each collection centre aims to become self-sustaining.
A centre typically operates as a microbusiness, contracted to the treatment facility, through a franchise agreement with EACR. Before a contract is signed and
7 http://worldloop.org/get-involved/e-resource-certificates/
8 http://www.eastafricancompliantrecycling.net/about-us 9 E-Waste Solutions Alliance for Africa (2013).
10 E-Waste Solutions Alliance for Africa includes participants like Dell, HP, Nokia, Phillips and Reclaimed Appliances (UK) Ltd. who have developed a set of principles which are critical in the success of managing e-waste in many developing countries.
Network for e-waste recycling in Kenya and other African countries 101
able to operate a collection point, operators, many of whom were previously in the informal e-waste recycling sector,11 have to undertake training and pass a test on health and safety, environmental protection, mercury spills and other areas. The standards and methods they now use are clearly stated and enforced by the treatment facility to ensure adherence. No dismantling or recycling takes place at collection points. This is all carried out at the central facility, thereby enabling the provision of the necessary health, safety and pollution control systems.
The collection points also work with a network of registered informal sector workers who are trained and provided with the necessary PPE. Environmental and personal protection is ensured throughout the collection process as the contracts, and therefore the payments, require the adherence to standards. There have been no specific awareness raising activities to source e-waste but media interest and support from the ministry and NEMA helped raise awareness of the facility. The franchise model with collectors encourages collectors to undertake local activities to ensure that they get the most material in their area.
The recycling facility receives about 10-15 tonnes of waste per month. EACR collects the containers from collection centres when the operators indicate that they are full. All the equipment is disassembled and the material are separated. Materials are then traded globally.
In the long term there are plans to take this to the next stage with the manufacture of other goods and support for local enterprises on the basis of those materials.
Non valuables are treated in an environmentally sound manner, including safe export to other facilities.
© EACR
Safe dismantling at the EACR facility
Lessons and the way forward
Both the WEEE Centre and EACR demonstrate that a sustainable solution to e-waste can operate in developing countries. They also ensure that all fractions, both valuable and non-valuable, hazardous and
11 Often carrying out poorly conducted, and potentially dangerous, e-waste recycling and recovery.
non-hazardous, are collected with proper enforcement of and incentives for adhering to environmental, health and safety standards. Major lessons learned from the experiences of these two organizations include:
• Local awareness of the hazards in e-waste and the steps required for proper e-waste management is extremely low.
• Projects require not only technical training but also managerial training. Gaps in knowledge include business planning, marketing & communications, corporate accounting and facility design.
• Collection can and should be undertaken through the local informal sector, after proper training and
‘formalization’. The collectors do not undertake any dismantling, as dismantling needs to be done in a central facility under close supervision to ensure that both health and safety and environmental standards are met.
• It has been recognized that various fractions (leaded glass from CRT monitors, most batteries, flat panel displays and capacitors) are not able to produce revenue for projects and represent a cost for proper treatment. In order to discourage cherry picking, financing needs to be in place to cover the collection and treatment costs of these fractions.
• These facilities can serve a regional need, either by importing e-waste from neighbouring countries (when regulations are in place), or by replicating there.
• Government engagement and support is a key enabler.
The success of these two facilities validates the claim that a gradually decreasing funding approach can lead to a successful business growth plan. The results of both models demonstrate that a sustainable business model involving local entrepreneurs is possible even when national regulations are not yet in force. However, the regulations are particularly important to ensure that all fractions are collected, including the problematic and hazardous ones.
Sustained interactions with NEMA and the presence of multi-stakeholder participants in these two major e-waste recycling facilities has resulted in the formulation of the draft Environmental Management and Co-ordination (E-Waste Management) Regulations, 201312 which will further facilitate the environmentally sound management of e-waste by incorporating extended producer responsibility. On implementation of the legislation, it is expected that municipal support will be made available for collecting and treating non-valuables and for incentivizing the adoption of environmentally sustainable treatment practices.
12 This regulation has been drafted and gazetted but not implemented.