Manufacturers of Electronics to Subsidise Recycling at End-of-Life
As Hinckley trains scavengers on e-waste handling
Millions of tons of e-waste are released into public space in Nigeria daily and now there is a plan to introduce a legal platform known as the Extended Producer Responsibility to compel manufacturers of electronics to pay for their recycling at their end-of-life. Regardless, a recycling company in Nigeria, Hinckley Group, has taken it up itself to train people who scavenge these materials on how to protect themselves. Bennett Oghifo reports
An effective plan for the management of electronic wastes in Nigeria has been produced from subsequent meetings held as follow-up to the first stakeholder meeting of manufacturers, importers, NESREA, Federal Ministry of Environment and some large end-users of electronics, held in October 2015, on the need for effective management of e-waste in Nigeria.
The meeting discussed Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR); how manufacturers of these appliances would pay for their end-of-life disposal. This is the norm with the environmental laws in the United States of America, particularly through the EPR, being spearheaded in Nigeria by Coca Cola The Managing Director of the Hinckley Group, Mr. Adrian Clews said the EPR enables responsible recyclers to compete. “The way it works is that the producer, which is defined as the importer of the electronics takes responsibility for the end-of-life of the electronics. So, the people that are making the money from the sale of the electronics will subsidise the recycling of it at end-of-life. So, if you’re Samsung and you import a million phones into Nigeria, definitely, you’re going to create a million units of e-waste somewhere down the line, maybe in 10 years they become waste. It is at the point of bringing it into the country that they take responsibility for those electronics by using extended producers responsibility, supported by legal framework and supported by the Nigerian government that would say Samsung, or LG or HP or whoever it is, you brought in this electronic waste, you now need to pay an amount of money to subsidise the cost of recycling the electronics. Responsible recyclers will receive those funds and that will enable them to offer a little extra beyond what they would give without the EPR system in place. “That way, he said they would remove a larger part of electronic waste from homes, offices and dumpsites and process them responsibly.
Regardless, before this matures, the Hinckley Group believes there is a need to train scavengers of electronic wastes to be environmentally responsible and they do this as purely corporate social responsibility (CSR). That was what Mr. Clews said they intend to do regularly, in addition to carrying out blood work on these people to determine levels or absence of contamination. “I have been working on this project for seven years, trying to establish a reputable, responsible and compliant electronic recycling facility in Nigeria. This has been my passion for quite a long time.” Clews said there seems to be very serious issue with individuals (scavengers) collecting electronic wastes from companies and people’s houses and taking them to dumpsites to try to extract some of the valuable materials from the electronics, like the copper, and other metals, the mother boards, circuit boards, which they sell. The issue, he said is that “we have seen is that they mismanage the hazardous materials in the electronics. So, on the phones, they leave the batteries, on the flat screen monitors, they are leaving the screens, on the bigger TVs, they are leaving the screens and the plastics surrounding them. At times, when the try to extract the valuable materials like the copper from the cables, they burn the plastic to get the copper but that plastic is PVC that has been treated with chemicals and we believe that as they are burning them, they are inhaling those chemicals. We believe that it would be leading to issues with their health. It is the reason we called in a medical centre today (last Friday).”
The week-long training on how these scavengers should handle e-waste took place at the company’s recycling facility at Ojota, Lagos and it ended with blood tests administered by Juli Laboratories, last Friday.
Hinckley picked these initial 11 trainees from the Association of Vendors of Used Computers and Allied Products but they plan to do more and go to other locations outside Lagos. “We are working with Ogun state to try and do a programme there to train and test 45 people. We are hoping to do that next month. Hinckley has been doing this as part of our CSR. We hope to attract more sponsors to come and support this programme.
“Apart from knowing the health status of the informal recyclers, we also want to know the impact on the environment around the dumpsite with all these toxins going into the soil and water and the animals that are drinking from the water and the plants that are growing from the soil; consuming them, we believe they will be having some impact on people’s health.”