BY JOHN OBORO, GENERAL SECRETARY OF CAPDAN It is with a sense of - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

BEING PRESENTATION ON THE 2-DAY INTERNATIONAL SUMMIT ON REGULATION AND MANAGEMENT OF E-WASTE IN NIGERIA (“EKO E - WASTE SUMMIT 2011”) SUB THEME: “ECONOMIC PERSPECTIVE OF E -WASTE DELIVERED BY JOHN OBORO, GENERAL SECRETARY OF CAPDAN It is with a sense of fulfillment and great delight that I make this presentation today on the occasion of the 2-Day International Summit on regulation and management of E- waste in Nigeria, tagged “ Eko E-waste Summit 2011 ” . E-Waste from different points of view is the fastest growing waste streams. Historically, e-waste has been sent to landfills, and or incinerated by dubious e-waste managers, however, there are so many reasons why this crude practice is undesirable, as it has been discovered to contain valuable and rare materials, such as gold, and copper which can be recovered and reused. It also contains a range of hazardous materials that can be potentially damaging to the environment if not disposed off correctly.

In discussing the likely economic prospective of e-waste, every factor that is necessary to cushion the effects of dumping must be given a priority attention as the focus is to put in place machineries that will bring about effective management and control of e-waste and in this consideration, recycling and refurbishing became a viable option in the very quest to drive an environmentally sound e-waste management. There is this conviction that e-waste recyclers and IT equipment recyclers have the best of both worlds. When the economy is in the tank as we are currently experiencing global economic melt down, many companies considered the very hash option of reducing their staff strength to avoid unnecessary costs and in some cases such companies falls completely out of business. In this scenario, recyclers and refurbishers benefit tremendously from IT equipment that are no longer useful. Whichever way, the recyclers and refurbishers will still benefit from the chunks of the IT equipment from companies flush with cash, which desired to dump outdated computers and telecom technology for latest and greatest. Research has shown that over the last several years, the regional computer recycling and recovery had experienced considerable growth in terms of both top-line revenue and incoming volume. This position was buttressed by its president Mr. Mike Whyte.

In the analysis the front-end-includes assets management, logistics and recycling fees while the back-end include both salvage and reselling. In this quest, there are indices of a very high competitions but this has not in any way vitiate the glaring prospects in recycling and refurbishing of IT equipment. Experts’ investigation has shown that over 30 million pounds of electronic waste was collected in the last 10 years. It is assertive, that state and Federal environmental agencies globally have determined that certain non-working and obsolete electronic products must be treated as hazardous waste if it is intended for disposal. Monitors and terminals contains from 4-8 pounds of lead and fail the TCLP test for TOXICITY, circuit boards in electronics according to experts should be disposed off in an environmentally sound manner. Available records has shown that Regional Computer Recycling and Recovery since 1995 have provided custom electronics recycling services to over 4000 clients and this has made them a premier vendor of choice for numerous businesses. They have positioned themselves as a pioneer in setting best – of – class standards in the industry. They have openly demonstrated three cardinal factors in driving up the momentum for environmentally sound delivery i.e. processing, consolidation, sorting in addition to first level demanufacturing facility which has brought to bear on environmentally sound processing methods, for maximizing value and recovery while minimizing and or eliminating disposal of electronics in landfills.

Research has shown that recycling raw materials from end-of-life electronics is the most effective solution to the growing e-waste problem. Most electronics devices contain a variety of materials including metals that can be recovered for future uses. By dismantling and providing reuse possibilities, intact natural resources are conserved and air and water pollution caused by hazardous disposal is avoided. It is also clear that recycling reduces the amount of greenhouse gas emissions caused by the manufacturing of new products. E-WASTE STATISTICS In recent years advances in consumer electronics and personal computers have spurred up economic growth and this has invariably changed information technology and improved people lives in countless ways. However, our growing dependence on electronics products both at home and our work places has given rise to a new environmental hazard in electronics waste. A recent study by EPA shows that electronics already make 1% of known municipal solid waste stream.

Research completed in Europe showed that electronics waste is an epidemics growing at an astronomical progression, three times the rate of other municipal waste. While it is difficult to prevent e-waste completely, environmental consequences have driven government policies to explore alternative solution, such as the reuse and or recycling of older electronics. Disposal of e-waste raise serious environmental and health issues. In this calculation, recycling e-waste is not just a viable solution to eliminate the harmful effects of e- waste disposal, but a sound business proposition in itself. It is crystal clear that e-waste or electronic waste consist of broken and unwanted electrical or electronic devices and peripherals, such as computers, monitors, printers batteries, mobile phones, televisions, lamps and others. Statistics has shown that e-waste usually find a place in landfills or in most cases face incineration and it is logical to submit here, that both options raised serious environmental and health issues. In this premise, recycling or processing e-waste to extract the minerals trapped inside and reusing the rest of the components is the most viable solution necessary to solve the menace of e-waste vis-à-vis driving the momentum for economic growth for genuine recyclers or refurbishers in the quest to evolve sound environmental management and effect control in our attempt to repair, recover, recycle, refurbish and or reuse (5Rs).

BENEFITS In discussing further, the economic perspective of e-waste, one need to place side by side some of the benefits desirable from our conscious management of e-waste to avoid dumping:  Elimi minati nation of of health th and environme nmenta ntal hazard ards  Conservat rvatio ion of of resources  Energy efficienc ciency  Econom omic ic growth th. Apart from the economic benefits, other major benefits of e-waste in genuine recycling are the elimination of health and environmental hazards caused by either deliberate and or unconscious disposal of untreated e-waste in landfills or through incinerations. EPA has candidly projected that more than 4 million tons of e-waste are hitting landfills each year with this figure compounding every year. Most of these e-waste has been scientifically proven to contain significant quantities of non-biodegradable toxic substances. Interestingly, computers, server, and other IT hardwares contains mercury, lead, barium, arsenic, antimony and cadmium. It has also been discovered that Flat Panel Light displays contains mercury while CRT Monitors contain lead. Recycling e- waste within the context of what is allowable helps to eliminate its propensity to cause health and environmental hazards. This to a great extent has succeeded in diverting nearly 70 million tons of e-waste from landfills and incinerators every year.

A major health benefit of recycling relates to reduction of pollution. Mining and processing minerals emit 1.5 tons of toxic emissions into the air and water every year. E-waste recycling contributes to eliminating 10 major categories of air pollutants and 8 major categories of water pollutants. E-WASTE RECYCLING HELPS CONSERVATION OF RESOURCES It is strategically put, that a major benefit of recycling relates to conservation of the world precious and finite natural resources such as water, minerals and timber. Research has revealed that the Pennsylvania Department of environmental protection estimates that recycling one Million tones of steels saves mining of 1.3 million tons of iron ore, 718,000 tons of coal, and 62,000 tons of limestone that would otherwise go to produce the one Million tons of steel afresh. Recycling of e-waste yields similar benefits, as it has been established that most e-waste contains minerals such as gold, silver, bauxite, copper, lead, tin and others. Most cell phones and computer manufacturers have buy-back offers which allows customers the opportunity of depositing their e-waste and the recycling of such e-waste provides a steady supply of raw materials without having to exploit the nature to find new sources of raw materials and customers benefit when companies pass on the resultant cost benefits in product pricing.