There is not yet an industry for processing e-waste in Kenya and Tanzania. Usually it ends up at the local dumping site. This is not in line with the sustainable objectives of Viafrica. Together with partners, including Rabobank and Delft University of Technology, we are working on a solution that prevents e-waste to disappear into the environment and which makes it possible that the costs can be generated locally.

Action Plan

At this moment, we collect all our e-waste and store it until there is a solution for processing it sustainably and safely. We work towards that solution by taking a number of important steps.

 

First of all by creating an easily accessible, attractive e-waste collection system that can be used at a large scale in the future. Owners of e-waste will have to be motivated, possibly financially, to hand in hardware. 

 

The next step is separating the collected hardware in parts. This can take place in Tanzania. The parts will subsequently enter various circuits. Metal could be processed by local metalworkers. And there may be more parts that can be processed locally in a similar way. The remainder will be shipped to Europe where it will be processed by specialised recycling companies.

 

We are currently designing the collection system and will start the first pilot projects later this year.