17 Feb 2009
A pilot e-waste recycling project set up by HP in Cape Town has seen successful results generating an income of about $14,000 in nine months and creating employment for 19 people.
The hardware vendor has been working with charity the Global Digital Solidarity Fund (DSF) and the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research (Empa) to tackle the mounting problem of e-waste in Africa, which often gets used as a dumping ground for old IT equipment.
The partners have been trying to encourage local businesses to tackle e-waste in keeping with international health and safety regulations.
Project manager and Empa researcher Mathias Schluep said the Cape Town trial - coupled with research in Morocco and Kenya - had shown that providing training to those who recycle waste already will help professionalise their jobs.
“By providing tools and training we have removed potential environmental and health problems that can be caused by handling e-waste incorrectly," he said.
"What’s more, we have created a channel to full employment for creative minds in the existing informal [waste recycling] sector."
The next phase of the partnerships project will look to engage governments in other countries and further extend e-waste management programmes and recycling facilities such as the one in Cape Town across the continent.
Research in Kenya showed that although the country is producing 3,000 tonnes of e-waste per year there is a lack of legislative framework and practical management systems.
The study found that a legislative framework would encourage a nascent waste-recycling industry into big business.
Dear Editor,
The Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive may be touted as a cost for suppliers, but unless organisations get their asset registers in order, it will also create a significant cost for UK business. The disposal of commercial IT equipment need not be a complicated headache. The key to WEEE compliance lies in a well managed asset register.
Such policies as WEEE assume a level of asset management far beyond that achieved by the majority of UK business. Unless supplying a like for like replacement, suppliers will only remove and dispose of equipment they have delivered initially. How many UK businesses can accurately identify the location of their WEEE equipment within the organisation and confirm when it was purchased and from whom? Without such information, just which company do they expect to handle the free disposal?
Organisations need to implement sound asset disposal procedures. Linking the asset register to a document management system will ensure a scanned WEEE certificate is linked to a disposed asset, providing the required audit trail. Each asset can be recorded alongside the supplier?s name and email address, enabling swift supplier contact when disposal is due.
UK business is already complaining about excessive red tape, perhaps why the WEEE Directive introduction in July 2007 was so downplayed. But a belief that the onus of WEEE is firmly on equipment suppliers could be an expensive mistake.
Yours faithfully,
Karen Conneely
Group Commercial Manager
Real Asset Management
Central Court
Knoll Rise
Orpington
Kent
BR6 0JA
01689 892100
www.realassetmgt.co.uk
Posted by: Karen Conneely 20 Feb 2009
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