‘Be wary of philanthropists who donate electric gadgets’
A lecturer at the School of Business, University of Cape Coast (UCC), Professor Rosemond Boohene, has cautioned Ghanaians to be wary of philanthropists who are using the country as a dumping site for electronic waste.
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Professor Boohene, who is also the Project Leader of Africa Green Project, recounted a situation where a school in the Eastern Region recently received a container full of second-hand computers from a philanthropist, only to find out that they were all not working.”
Professor Boohene gave the caution at a stakeholder’s workshop in Kumasi, which was organised by the University of Cape Coast Switch Africa Green Project and partnered by the European Union (EU).
Statistics
Statistics from the EPA indicate that out of the 215,000 tonnes of electronic gadgets imported into the country each year, 170,000 tonnes are second hand.
The most worrying aspect is that a whopping 22,000 tonnes are waste, which end up at the dumping sites and pose health hazards to Ghanaians and cause irreparable damage to the environment.
Junk gadgets
Prof. Boohene urged authorities of education institutions and orphanages to be cautious of the so-called philanthropist who would come to donate such “junk gadgets”, all in the name of providing for the vulnerable in society.
The Ashanti Regional Director of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Mr Samuel Oteng, who confirmed the figures about the influx of the e-waste, explained that the situation had been compounded by the insatiable craze of the Ghanaian for electronic gadgets most of which were second-hand which had a short life span, increasing the amount of e-waste.
Another health threatening and environmentally disastrous situation, he said, was that most people did not know how to dispose of such used gadgets.
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He, therefore, appealed for the adoption of adequate waste disposal measures in order to help build a green environment to sustain the socio-economic growth of the country.
He also appealed to all scrap dealers in the region to register with the EPA in order to be abreast of the state-of-the-art measures in managing waste.