Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for the African Region (BCCC-Africa), has released a new report showing that Nigeria is the highest importer of electronic waste in sub-Saharan Africa followed by Ghana.
The International Basel Convention is meant to regulate and control the movement of hazardous waste from developed to developing countries – but it has been difficult to enforce the convention even though many countries have signed the document.
Unfortunately, these imports are not seized at ports both by Customs and Nigeria Environmental Standards Regulatory and Enforcement Agency (NEAREA).
Whereas NESREA claims that it no longer has access to the ports due to their ouster by federal government, Customs officials contacted by our correspondent refused to make comments on the continued imports of the fairly used electronic materials.
These e-wastes include damaged TV sets, non-tested smartphones, electric cookers, kettles, sockets and so many other electric powered gadgets.
According to the report made public in Lagos at the Person-In- Port Project closing workshop by the Executive Director of BCCC-Africa, Prof. Percy Onianwa, “Nigeria currently imports over 1.1 million of tones e-waste from the consumption of fairly used imported electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) that have ceased to function”.
The report showed that many of the gadgets are considered e-wastes because they arrived at end of life statuses.
BCCC-Africa further warned this development may cause a lot of social health challenges if it goes on unchecked.
Prof. Onianwa added that dumping e-waste was creating a toxic legacy, revealing that “We’ve found excess heavy metals in the soil, as well as in plants and people who eat vegetables. You have grazing animals, people picking vegetables and eating them, and then the drinking water containing these toxins.”
He averred that industrialised countries generate the e-waste from functional equipment that consumers replace with a newer version send it through Nigeria seaports after packaging them smartly.
Business Hilights gathered that there is a new collaboration between the UNU Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS), the US Environmental Protection Agency, the Basel Convention Coordination Centre for Africa in Nigeria (all members of the UNU-IAS Solving the E-waste Problem (Step) Initiative) and Electronic Recyclers International, set up to gather information and reliable data on the import of used EEE and e-waste into Nigeria, Onianwa noted.
