Germany supports e-waste disposal in Ghana

The German government has unveiled a plan to help Ghana deal with electronic waste at Agbogbloshie, a major dumping site outside of the capital, Accra. The project aims to protect both workers and the environment.

Young men busy themselves extracting copper from the dumped electronics and other scrap materials so they can resell what the collect. With bare hands, they burn the electronics, which causes a thick black smoke. Though this is a necessity for their business, the smoke makes it difficult for people nearby to breathe.

Agbogbloshie is the hub of electronic waste (e-waste) in West Africa and most of the electronics dumped at the site are hazardous. The site is notorious for the dangerous manner in which electronic waste is collected and burned. The practice pollutes not only the atmosphere but also nearby bodies of water and is dangerous for the workers.

The processing of e-waste pollutes the environment and poisons workers

The German government announced this week a 20 million euro ($21.5 million) project it says will transform the electronic waste processing system in Accra. It calls for the building of an e-waste recycling facility where materials can be brought and sold and processed safely to the benefit of the local community. The plan was presented at a public event by the German Ambassador to Ghana, Christoph Retzlaff.

"The second component [of the plan] is a health station in Agbogbloshie to support people living there," he added.

Global and local problem

The UN Environment Program (UNEP) reported in 2015 that 60 to 90 percent of the world's electronic waste is illegally dumped. In 2014, an estimated 42 million tons of e-waste were generated. But according to UNEP, 85 percent of the e-waste dumped in Ghana and other parts of West Africa is produced in Ghana and West Africa. 

The local group City Waste Management is already excited about the initiative and is positioning itself to make the best out of the project.

"We are grateful that the German embassy here in Ghana has come on board to do this with the Ghanaian private sector. We are looking forward to working with them," said Wendy Ahiayibor, a representative of the company

Australian e-waste ending up in toxic African dump, torn apart by children

A computer monitor from St George Bank, destined for recycling in Australia, has been found on a toxic e-waste dump in west Africa, being pulled apart by children as young as five.

At Agbobbloshi dump, in Ghana's capital, Accra, children tear apart e-waste from western nations with their hands, and burn circuit boards over open fires to melt out the precious metals.

Broken or redundant computers are considered hazardous waste and are illegal to ship out of Australia — so the discovery of the bank monitor raises serious questions about the integrity and regulation of Australia's growing e-waste problem.

St George Bank, wholly owned by Westpac, claims gold standard environmental stewardship.

It says it followed the "right processes to ensure the St George Bank monitor was despatched" to their recycling partner.

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Ghanaian environmental reporter, Mike Anane, on assignment for RN's Background Briefing, discovered the broken monitor during a routine visit to check on the health and welfare of children working at Agbobbloshie dump, considered the worst dump in the world.

"Over 500 container loads of electronic waste are coming from these developed countries, including Australia, every single month," said Mr Anane, speaking from Accra.

"Lately there is so much coming from Australia. I see about three container loads of electronic waste coming from Australia every single month.

"It is not just immoral, it is criminal to ship these things here."

Australia is one of the biggest consumers of electronics in the world, buying millions of items a year, which translates into almost 600,000 tonnes of e-waste annually.

The St George Bank monitor is part of that growing pile.

Background Briefing showed a video of a 13-year-old boy on the Agbobbloshie dump holding the bank's monitor to Don Quinn, operations manager at WorkVentures, which has the contract for Westpac's 15,000 e-waste items every year.

Mr Quinn said he did not believe the monitor passed through WorkVentures.

But when asked to confirm this by checking back through their asset register, the company advised by email a week later that the monitor had indeed been put through their system as e-waste in 2012.

"We looked up the sticker number on the monitor from the video you showed us and found we picked it up from St George Bank and decommissioned it in May 2012," the email said.

Because the monitor was deemed broken and not able to be fixed, it was sent on to another recycler.

WorkVentures is a not-for-profit group that refurbishes computers and sells them to the disadvantaged and community groups at discounted prices.

Items that cannot be repaired are disposed of through other recyclers.

From what the ABC can tell, the monitor made its way from one of these other recyclers to Ghana.

Neither WorkVentures nor Westpac would agree to further interviews about the integrity of their e-waste disposal chain, or how the monitor ended up on the Agbobbloshie dump.

WorkVentures declined to identify the third-party Australian recycler they used, but said they severed that relationship in 2012 because their documentation was not up to standard.

WorkVentures also declined to say if there were other monitors and computers in the batch that found its way to Ghana.

Westpac said in an email: "We can't speculate on how the monitor ended up in Ghana five years after we dispatched it, however it is of great concern to us.

"We are determined to work with WorkVentures and our suppliers to understand how this has happened."

Westpac is not alone in losing control of its hazardous e-waste.

Mr Anane says the lack of regulatory oversight is one of the reasons Australian e-waste is ending up on dumps in Africa.

He has been warning western nations for years about the temptation for recyclers to avoid costly, legitimate disposal of what they collect.

Indeed, it seems very easy to find third-party recyclers who are prepared to illegally export hazardous e-waste from Australia.

Background Briefing made contact with an e-waste dealer in the Middle East who offered $500 per 1,000 kilograms of broken and smashed computers.

A major Australian national e-waste recycler, Geordie Gill, confirmed he was regularly contacted by rogue dealers hungry for his e-waste.

"On a fortnightly basis we will get emails from offshore and basically it comes down to: 'I will buy your e-waste from you'," Mr Gill said.

"The majority of the emails come from Africa and we've been offered up to $20,000 per shipping container of e-waste."

When asked if he believed there were Australian operators selling to these dealers Mr Gill said: "The opportunity is there. I would have to say yes."

Background Briefing is not asserting that Westpac or their recyclers sent the broken St George Bank monitor to Ghana, but its appearance at Agbobbloshi dump reveals a lack of oversight.

Mr Anane tells us the health problems suffered by the children exposed to e-waste are life-threatening.

"Each time I go to the dump ... I see the children with all these open sores, I see them with skin diseases," he said.

"They tell me, 'We cannot run, I have a problem with my heart, my heart beats faster, I cannot play football, I have headaches all the time.'

"It's obvious that these children will not live to see their 20th birthday. A lot of the kids disappear from the dumps and it's obvious what happens to them."

At PDAC Peru will introduce new mining promotion policy to attract investment - International Mining

Peru's Minister of Energy and Mines, Gonzalo Tamayo Flores, leads the Peruvian delegation of more than 200 representatives from public and private sectors to the PDAC. During this event, the head of the sector will introduce a new direction for the mining promotion policy promoted by the current government of Peru, which intends to reactivate foreign investment in the development of exploration projects. The geological potential and competitive advantages of Peru in comparison with other countries will also be displayed.

"The new government's challenge is to increase competitiveness of mining investment in Peru through a new approach that will allow simplification of administrative procedures, reduction of social conflict and implementation of development projects in the areas of influence of the mining sites", highlighted Flores.

Peru is the world's second producer of copper, zinc and silver. In Latin America, Peru is the first producer of gold, zinc, lead and molybdenum. It also has the world's largest silver reserves and leads the Latin American ranking of gold, silver, zinc and molybdenum reserves.

"These figures reflect the wealth of our resources, the Peruvian mining production capacity and the stability of our economic policies", emphasized the Minister of Energy and Mines.

Among Peru's competitive advantages of investing in the Peruvian mining sector that the delegation aims to highlight are the low exploration and operating costs, macroeconomic stability, the innovation level of local suppliers and the efforts made by the Peruvian government in promoting a convergence among the production sectors, the communities and the mining industry.

Another important factor is the Peruvian economic model, which offers a regulatory framework that establishes equal treatment to investors regardless of their origin, as well as opportunities in every productive and service activity, within a free market policy.

As part of the PDAC Convention 2017, the 'Peru Day' will take place on Monday 6 MArch. It will be an entire day dedicated to introduce diverse aspects of the Peruvian mining industry and its investment opportunities as well as to meet national entrepreneurs.

On Tuesday 7, the 'CEO & Investors Luncheon' will take place, which is an opportunity to join more than 130 top executives from mining companies and investment firms interested in investing in the Peruvian mining industry. The Peruvian Head of the Ministers' Office, Fernando Zavala Lombardi, will attend this event.

During the four-day event, Peru will have an official pavilion offering official updated and useful information for investors, which will be distributed by the Ministry of Energy and Mines. The inauguration of this pavilion will take place on Sunday 5th with the presence of the Minister of Energy and Mines.

Samsung and Greenpeace: what you need to know about e-waste

At the smartphone world’s annual shindig in Barcelona, there are some things the tech giants have been trying to get people talking about – the relaunch of the Nokia 3310, BlackBerry’s new fingerprint scanner, Samsung’s virtual reality headset.

But there’s another, less glamorous story that they haven’t been so keen to promote. And that concerns the fate of their gadgets when consumers have finished with them.

On Sunday, Greenpeace interrupted a Samsung press conference to protest the company’s failure to produce a recycling plan for the defective Galaxy Note 7, recalled last year due to fire risk. The campaign group claims Samsung has 4.3m handsets to get rid of.

A Samsung spokesperson has since said the company is working “to ensure a responsible disposal plan” for its defunct phones, and prioritising safety and environment. But if the piled up Galaxy Note 7s go the same way as the rest of our old smartphones, computers and tablets, where might they end up?

Sending e-waste offshore

Since the start of 2017, we have thrown out more than 6.4m tonnes of electronic goods, according to The World Counts, a website keeping a live tally of global e-waste. If past patterns are any judge, not much of this will get properly recycled: less than a sixth of the e-waste discarded around the world in 2014 was dealt with in this way, says the UN.

Even in developed countries with advanced infrastructure, electronics recycling rates are low. The US recycled just 29% (pdf) of the 3.4m tonnes of e-waste it produced in 2012, according to the Environmental Protection Agency, while the rest was sent to landfill or incinerated.

“Our recycling rates for electronics are abysmal,” says Jim Puckett, executive director and founder of the Basel Action Network (BAN), an NGO. He estimates that 5% of metals used in electronics are recycled, at most.

When products are handed over for recycling, a portion end up in informal recycling hotspots in developing countries, such as Accra in Ghana or parts of southern China, where they are broken down in an uncontrolled environment, Puckett explains. UN figures suggest up to 90% of the world’s e-waste is illegally dumped.

“We sweep everything to developing countries where they have the least infrastructure and efficient recycling,” says Puckett.

In a recent experiment, BAN placed GPS trackers on 205 old printers and monitors to see what happened to them. Of the devices handed over for recycling, 40% were sent offshore, mostly to Asia. BAN’s team followed 37 of them to Hong Kong, where it found workers breaking down electronics by hand in informal junkyards.

This kind of unregulated processing of e-waste carries severe consequences for environment and human health, including air pollution when circuit boards are heated to access the metals, soil pollution as chemicals seep into the earth, and water pollution as toxic materials get into groundwater and other supplies.

Lost value

Recycling failures also lead to a waste of precious materials, like gold, copper and platinum. This not only means that fresh supplies are mined unnecessarily, but also that money is wasted through missed recycling opportunities. Potential revenues from e-waste recycling in the European market in 2014 were as high as 2bn euros, estimates Sheffield University’s centre for energy, environment and sustainability.

Companies including Microsoft and Dell have sought to address their e-waste footprint by partnering with third-party organisations like Goodwill, which sells or recycles donated electronics. Last year Apple unveiled a recycling robot called Liam, who it says can take apart an iPhone in 11 seconds.

More recent ideas have included a mobile phone offset scheme, launched on Tuesday by recycling company Sims Recycling Solutions and Dutch social enterprise Closing the Loop. They promise to remove one phone from an e-waste dump for every phone used by the scheme’s customers, including ING Bank.

Puckett believes more systemic change is needed, however. When it comes to tackling the sheer quantity of discarded electronics, he says progress will only come via market-based incentives for longer-lasting electronics. A system where electronics are leased out rather than bought and sold, for example, would incentivise companies to make products last as long as possible, he says.