Ghana’s Environmental Protection Agency, (EPA) now appears to be acting to address the problems of e-waste that has been confronting the country.
The guidelines, according to the EPA, would prevent the dumping of such gadgets which could be harmful to the public.
The
report quoted the Public Relations Officer of the EPA, Mr. William
Abaidoo as saying that the guidelines would serve as a standard for
what “we want to have and receive as a country in terms of electronic
wastes.”
According to him, electronic wastes are used televisions, radios, computers, cameras and mobile phone batteries.
The
report said, he noted that most of these used electronics gadgets were
hazardous, adding that if such wastes were not regulated and
indiscriminately added to other refuse, the toxin from those wastes
could leak into underground water sources.
Mr. Abaidoo, told the
Daily Graphic that a proposal had been tabled by the Chemical Control
and Management Committee to set-up a sub-committee of the Hazardous
Waste Committee to look at used electronics gadgets separately.
According
to Mr. Abaidoo, the committee would categorise the types of used
electronics gadgets that would be allowed into the country.
He
also said, an inventory would be taken to ascertain the actual
situation on the ground through the application of questionnaires to
importers and end users of these electronics products to see the
quantity they received, what they used them for and the way they were
disposed of.
Mr. Abaidoo said the committee would use the data
to be collected as a baseline data to come out with the guidelines to
regulate the inflow of the items as well as suggest ways of disposal
and recycling of the wastes.
He told the Daily Graphic that the
committee would be made up of officials of the Customs, Excise and
Preventive Service (CEPS), Ministry of Trade, end users of electronics
wastes, computer technicians, repairers, the Ghana Standards Board and
telecommunications companies.
He said, "we have finished all the paper work. The identification of stakeholders have also been done."
Keen
observers of the e-waste problem in Ghana see this basic step the EPA
has taken as commendable. But the step in the same breath betrays the
EPA’s lack of understanding of the matter.
Even though, Ghana
has ratified the Basel Convention on the Control of Transboundary
Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal in 2005, not much has
been done to implement the Convention in the country.
The Basel
Convention on the Transboundary Movement of Hazardous Wastes and their
Disposal was adopted on 21 March 1989 and went into force on 5 May
1992. It establishes a framework of control over the transboundary
movements of hazardous wastes.
The Convention was initiated in
response to numerous international scandals regarding hazardous waste
trafficking that began to occur in the late 1980s.
The EPA must do more than the usual if it must effectively safeguard Ghanaians and the environment from the dangers of e-waste.
It
is however, hoped that this initiative would be pursued with the
urgency and commitment it requires, because if done right, many
Ghanaian lives could be saved, if so many have not gone down already
with cancers that these chemicals predispose humans to.
