A SENIOR Research Associate at the Chair for Social and Cultural Anthropology with a focus on Africa at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, Dr Samwel Ntapanta says that instead of seeding capital to invest in high-tech recycling infrastructures, Tanzania needs a comprehensive and inclusive e-waste recycling policy to protect the sub sector.
Dr Ntapanta, a Tanzanian national working as a senior researcher at the Germany University said that the government and other stakeholders should create an environment where scrap dealers, crafters, collectors and the manufacturing industry can come together.
He insists that this can be done by creating an e-waste economic zone, micro-financing, registration, training and tax exemptions. He further says that the government should work with civil society organisations to create consortia for scrap dealers, crafters and collectors.
“The associations should be responsible for organising their members to move to the industrial areas, where workshops, gears and tools for extracting materials safely exist. Crafters should also locate their workshops in the zone,” said Dr Ntapanta who is working on the convergences of East African urbanism, its link to globalisation, consumption and discarding of electronic and electric devices (e-waste).
He added: “Furthermore, established associations will represent workers to government institutions and other actors, channeling their agenda. The associations could be integrated with micro-finance schemes to boost members’ capital.” He went on to say that scrap workers need protection and recognition as essential contributors to the city’s waste management and economy.
“However, the most crucial action would be for the government to make these activities tax exempted to attract dealers and crafters to move to the zones. One reason for informal economies is to avoid taxes and fees charged by the government,” he said.
He noted: “Informal businesses have low to medium amounts of capital, which motivates them to remain under the radar of government fees. An exemption would encourage the move into the waste economic zones.” “Furthermore, I am promoting to enlarge awareness about chemical compounds, make protective gear available and methods to reduce toxic emissions.
These methods will only be successful, if recycling centres are known and stop popping up at all corners of the city – and the government needs to take seriously the labour and livelihood, because informal e-waste recycling are scattered in Dar es Salaam, unlike in famous informal recycling districts of Agbogbloshie in Ghana or Guayu in China, where the activities are concentrated in one area,” he observed.
He pointed out that Tanzania is now facing a rapid increase in population, an exodus of young people from rural areas to urban centres because of increasing unemployment, with the informal recycling offering good income to the majority.
“With this, informal collectors buy defunct devices from the user and take them to recycling centres. Even in developed countries, the formal sector collects for free and sometimes charges collection fees. Many people prefer to earn from their discards and will definitely not pay a fee for their old electronics,” he said.
He stressed: “Tanzania has joined the middle-income countries. This means purchasing power of households has also increased. With prices of electronics becoming lower, more devices will be acquired.” Dangers of E-waste management for humans and nature Dr Ntapanta further says that e-waste is lucrative in developing countries, where its value is exhumed through different informal salvaging activities.
“During these processes, value is created ingeniously, and livelihood is sustained precariously. However, at the same time, methods used to recycle, chopping and burning allow embedded toxic compounds to be released, thus exposing workers, surrounding dwellers and the environment.” The planet has entered a period where traces left by humans can be witnessed almost everywhere.
Waste is one of the most distinctive marks left by human activities on earth. Waste produced by humans can be found even in the most remote areas – at the bottom of the sea, in arctic regions or deep in tropical forests. Economies and daily lives are connected to waste – its production, sorting, reusing and recycling, or removal from sight. The number and variety of electronic devices in circulation today is as commonplace as it is daunting, with households, workplaces and daily lives dependent on electronic devices.
Plug-in toasters and kettles are used to prepare breakfast; offices are organised around computers and printers; cars run on batteries, and meetings are held via conference calls, emails, or short message services. Electronics are viewed as markers of progress, symbolising human control over time, distance and space.
More importantly, they have become an essential part of ourselves, perhaps to the extent that they can be considered as cyborg prostheses. However, these electronics have limited lifespans, and with them, streams of waste are emerging that affect the planet and regions of the world in uneven ways.
Some entrepreneurs who are involved in the informal e-waste recycling activities in Dar es Salaam called on the government to give them financial and conducive environment so as to properly collect the waste products, especially electronics.
“We are taking care of our families from e-waste recycling activities, but sometimes some of our members are harassed by authorities asking for taxes, we are collecting this scraps from very bad environments, we need policy to support our business,” a Kinondoni based ewaste recycling entrepreneur, John Abraham says.
On his part, Rajabu Juma, another e-waste recycling entrepreneur and a charcoal stove artisan from Dar es Salaam said: “We are about 30 people here who are using e-waste materials to create charcoal stoves.
“E-waste is very essential to our lives because we are turning waste into new products such as charcoal stoves, therefore it creates grounds for our economic security,” he said.
Another Dar es Salaam’s ewaste collector, Karim Ramadhani said many young people are employed through e-waste, saying there is need for the government supporting them to have advanced technologies on recycling
