By Ben Morris.
The technology of business editor.
Eric Arthur is the image source.
The image caption is.
Arthur collects broken phones at the weekends.
Eric Arthur doesn't have much time for hobbies, he spends most weekends collecting broken mobile phones.
He can travel more than 100 miles from his home in Cape Coast to visit repair shops and scrap yards that have a decent supply of broken devices.
He can get 400 of them in a good weekend. He manages a team of six agents who collect phones in other parts of the country and they expect to collect 30,000 phones this year.
Mr Arthur and his agents pay a small amount to the sellers for each phone.
Even though the phones are beyond repair, it can take some persuading to get people to part with them.
I offer them less than $1 for a new $150 phone, which is a new version of the Android operating system. Even though it's no longer usable, they're still like "But I bought it at this price." I don't understand why I should give it as cheap as that.
His work is paid for by a Dutch company. The phones collected by Eric and his team are recycled in Europe. A specialist smelting firm retrieves most of the metals in the phone and then burns the plastic parts.
Why ship phones from West Africa?
The image is closing the loop.
The image caption is.
Fees from clients in Europe fund recycling in Africa.
The answer is simple, says the co-founding member of Closing the Loop. The small quantities of highly valuable metals that go into making a mobile phone are not yet accessible to Africa.
He says that "everything you need to have in a plant that is financially sustainable is missing." There is no consumer awareness. You don't have any money to pay for proper collection and recycling.
There are over 200 million phones sold in Africa every year. Most are thrown away when they are no longer needed.
Africa generated over 2 million tonnes of electronic waste in the year of 2019, but only 1% was effectively collected and recycled.
African countries are experts in life-cycle extension, repair and recycling. The proper tooling is missing for this type of waste, which is why the mindset is already there.
To pay for the collection of phones in Africa, Closing the loop strikes deals with companies and organizations which pay Closing the loop around 5 per new phone that they buy or lease from whoever provides their technology.
In countries that don't have formal recycling capacity, closing the loop recycles an equivalent amount of electronic waste for every new device.
The collection, shipping and recycling of a phone in Africa is covered by the 5 per phone.
The Dutch government and financial services firm is a growing customer. It is a relatively small investment for the clients but it has a significant environmental benefit.
The image is closing the loop.
The image caption is.
The company expects to collect 300,000 phones this year.
Mr de Kluijver is not a fan of the recent efforts to set up waste recycling schemes in Africa. Without a sustainable financial model and enforced legislation in place, they will struggle to get off the ground.
Simone Andersson is aware of those challenges. She is the chief commercial officer of the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment Centre.
There is a waste collection service in some areas of the country. The idea for WEEE Centre came from a non-profit organisation.
In 2012 it launched a recycling firm after it showed that there was a need to deal with unwanted electronic waste.
The image is from WEE CENTRE.
The image caption is.
Simone and Ibrahim are at the WEEE Centre's workshop.
The WEEE Centre expects to collect 250 tonnes of electronic waste this year.
This is only a small portion of the e-waste generated in the country. Ms Andersson wants to set up collection points all over the country to allow people to leave unwanted electronics.
She says that people are becoming more aware of the environmental problems caused by e-waste and would like to do something about it.
Most people are aware of the waste issues. She says that many people would like to change their ways if there was only some infrastructure to support it.
The EPR legislation will assign the financial burden of recycling products back to the producers or importers of electronic goods.
"We are pushing for it because we know it's needed in this country," says Ms Andersson. "We want to see a good role model for the rest of Africa, and that's what we want to see from Kenya."
If the laws are in place, the EPR will help. It will have a great effect on targets and structures, but maybe not immediately.
The image is from the WEEE Centre.
The image caption is.
Iron and copper can be recovered in Africa, but precious metals have to be dealt with out of Africa.
The workshop team of 10 technicians carefully sort and dismantle electronic devices. Precious metals like gold, Platinum, and palladium can only be retrieved by specialist smelting firms in Europe or Asia, so they can't be recovered locally.
One day, Ms Andersson would like to build a plant in Africa. Why not eastern Africa? Why not both of them? That is part of our vision.
Mr de Kluijver hopes that closing the loop will be able to finance recycling plants and smelters in Africa, but until then, the next best option is to ship phones to Europe.
Eric Arthur has seen improvements in the handling of electronic waste in the past, but thinks more needs to be done.
He believes that with more education people will understand the need to dispose of electronic waste.
Ben Morris is an editor at Technology of Business.
There is a country called Kenya.
Recycling.
Business in Africa.
There are mobile phones.
The country ofGhana.
Africa's economy.
