Low pricing of cables and other useful materials recovered from electronic waste (e-waste) accounts for the failure of scrap metal dealers to send their items to the e-waste management satellite handover centre at Agbogbloshie in Accra for payment.
Although the centre was set up in 2020 with an incentive payment system by German Development Cooperation (GIZ) and the Ministry of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) to promote the sound management of e-waste, the scrap dealers have deserted it because of low pricing compared to world prices.
Consequently, some of the scrap dealers still resort to crude methods of extracting cables and other e-waste, mostly through open burning, a situation which poses dire environmental and health consequences.
This came to light when the Minister of MEST, Dr Ibrahim Murtala Muhammed, paid a working visit to the Agbogbloshie Scrapyard to interact with the Greater Accra Scrap Dealers Association (GASDA) yesterday.
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Context
The Agbogbloshie Scrapyard started operating in 1997. GASDA currently has 6,000 members with over 20,000 direct dependents.
Although the scrap business has helped to put food on their table, the precarious conditions under which the scrap dealers operate, including open burning of e-waste, have caused environmental and health concerns.
It was in a bid to ensure sound management of e-waste that MEST and GIZ set up the e-waste management satellite handover centre at Agbogbloshie under the “Recycling and Disposal of Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment in an Environmentally Sound Way” project.
The centre accepts cables, waste batteries of electronic gadgets and other e-waste.
Fair pricing
To address the impasse between the scrap dealers and the operators of the holding centre and ensure the sound management of e-waste, Dr Mohammed asked for the formation of a committee that includes officials from MEST to determine fair pricing for e-waste.
“We need to structure the pricing system such that when world prices of e-waste are rising, the managers of the e-waste handover centre will adjust their incentive system accordingly and vice versa,” he said.
The minister also asked the scrap dealers to strictly adhere to environmentally sound methods of extracting useful material from electronic waste instead of resorting to open burning.
He said the open burning of e-waste was not only detrimental to human health but also had dire environmental consequences.
Concerns
Dr Mohammed said it was worrying that although the collection centre had been set up for the handling of e-waste, it was not being patronised.
The minister said no one took delight in depriving scrap metal dealers of their livelihoods as long as it did not pose environmental and health threats to the public. Again, he said the situation where some of the scrap dealers were linked to criminal activities was unacceptable.
Political parties will come and go but the relationship that binds us together as a people must be a thing of the past," he stressed.
Touching on a concern raised by the scrap dealers that some materials could currently not be removed by any means apart from burning them, the minister said a sound way of handling such material would be explored going forward.
"But for now, open burning of e-waste is a no, no," he stressed.
Commitments
The Secretary of the Greater Accra Scrap Dealers Association (GASDA), Alhaji Mohammed Ali, expressed gratitude to the minister for engaging them on the issue of the scrap yard land.
He said the scrap metal business was the source of livelihood for hundreds of people, so any decision that could affect the business must be critically thought through.
