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Contributions from
the Column
Monitor
Information technology – little leapfrogging potential
World Summit on the Information Society
Electronic waste – digital divide becomes digital dump
US food aid remains unreformed
NGO report on German development aid
German President launches “Partnership with Africa”
New German government agrees on development policy
Kortmann becomes Parliamentary Secretary
ACP countries criticise EU Partnership Agreements
Africa looses out in apparel competition
Reforming EU’s sugar regulations
12/2005
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[ Electronic waste ]
The digital divide becomes a digital dump
Exporting computers taken out of service from advanced nations to developing countries is a growth business. If the hardware still works or is worth being repaired, both sides can benefit from the transaction. Manufacturers and consumers in rich countries get rid of their old computers and even make some money. The new users in Africa, Asia and Latin America in turn, acquire urgently needed hard and software at a low price. That’s the theory.
In practice, this business is often no more than a convenient form of waste disposal for rich countries. According to a study by the environmental organisation Basel Action Network (BAN), a large proportion of the exported equipment is worthless scrap, which ends up on informal rubbish dumps in poor countries in spite of being harmful to people and the environment. Each month, some 400,000 old computers and monitors arrive in Nigeria, where BAN conducted research. According to the Nigerian Computer Dealers Association, up to 75 percent of these computers can no longer be used and are beyond repair. “While supposedly closing the ‘digital divide’, we are really starting a ‘digital dump’,” the BAN study sums up.
The report accuses the exporting countries of turning a blind eye to the export of electronic scrap – and of violating a number of international agreements, not least the Basle Convention on the Control of Transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes. The UN Convention, which has been in force since 1992, has over 160 members including all industrialised countries – with the exception of the USA. But according to BAN, even the USA are under an obligation to control trade in hazardous waste, through an agreement within the OECD framework.
BAN is worried that the export of hazardous waste from Europe could increase significantly in coming years. The reason is an EU guideline which requires manufacturers and dealers of electronic goods to take back and recycle discarded computers from August this year. If EU members do not monitor the export of used equipment more strictly, the study maintains, the guideline will lead to a “tsunami of electronic waste flowing from port to port.”
The most important demand that the study raises is that exporting countries should ensure testing of every used computer taken out of the country as second hand equipment. If it no longer works or is beyond repair, it must not be exported. Australia has already passed such regulation but, according to BAN, poor countries will only benefit from the trade in used computers if all rich countries follow suit. (ell)
On the internet:
http://www.ban.org
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