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[Theo Schmidt]

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Barbara

  Nigeria: As E-Waste dump, Lagos imperils people
  Inter Press Service (IPS), by Sam Olukoya - January 24, 2008.

Lagos (Nigeria) - Nigeria’s commercial capital is arguably one of the 
largest dumps for obsolete electronic items otherwise called e-wastes.

According to the Basel Action Network (BAN), a Seattle-based 
environmental group, an estimated 500 shipping containers with a load 
equal in volume to 400,000 computer monitors or 175,000 large TV sets 
enter Lagos each month. As much as 75 percent of some shipments are 
classified as e-waste. "The reasons for this huge influx of e-waste into 
Lagos are not far fetched," Peter Ejiofor, a Lagos dealer in second hand 
computers told IPS. "Lagos has a large sea port where the items easily 
slip through, also there is a huge appetite for cheap second hand 
imported electronics items in the city," he says.

But Lagos is paying a huge environmental cost for these cheap items. 
Most of the imported items get discarded almost as soon as they are 
shipped into Lagos. "E-waste is a major problem, it’s a major challenge, 
we have a pile up of them," Ola Oresanya, managing director of the Lagos 
Waste Management Authority (LAWMA), told IPS. With no facilities to 
recycle e-wastes, they are indiscriminately discarded around the city. 
Some of them end up in dumpsites where they are burnt.

Environmentalists have expressed concern about this. "It is a very 
worrisome situation because components from these electronic items are 
very hazardous," Leslie Adogame of the Nigerian Environmental Society 
told IPS. He is particularly concerned about the health implication. 
"There is open burning. Some components produce a lot of particulate 
matters," he says. "People around the areas where the wastes are being 
burnt have to be suffering from chest-related diseases because they 
inhale a lot of noxious substances," he added.

Oresanya says LAWMA is concerned about the dangers posed by e-waste. 
Education has been one of the main actions taken by the authorities to 
curb the menace. "We have been educating people against burning 
e-wastes. We believe they would change," he says. But Adogame believes 
combating e-waste should go beyond education. He says the way out is for 
the establishment of "an integrated system to manage the waste." To 
combat the enormous task, Lagos authorities are looking to the private 
sector for assistance. "We have been talking with the organised private 
sector who have the wherewithal to manage the disposal of these e-wastes 
to come in and assist us," says Oresanya.

Lagos has a huge waste disposal problem. The streets are littered with 
little plastic sachets used for selling water. In the hot tropical 
weather, hundreds of thousands of plastic sachets of water are purchased 
monthly.
"The sachets are partly responsible for the severe flooding that some 
parts of Lagos have faced in recent years," Lagos resident Femi Oluwole 
told IPS. "When it rains the plastic sachets block the drains and the 
water overflows, flooding the street and our houses," says Oluwole whose 
residence in Agege, a Lagos suburb is often flooded.

Lagos is one of the most populous cities in the world. According to U.N. 
projections, Lagos’ population will reach 20 million by 2010. Many 
concede that the city’s high population poses a challenge to waste 
disposal. "Population could be an even bigger problem if waste disposal 
is poorly managed," says Oresanya. Lagos generates about 9,000 metric 
tonnes of wastes daily. As much as 80 percent of this waste can be 
recycled. Oresanya believes the huge waste generated in the city can be 
harnessed to positive use through recycling.

Under the city’s recycling initiative called ‘zero waste programme’, 
organic waste which makes up 60 percent of the city’s waste is being 
recycled into compost. This is being utilised for a green programme 
aimed at beautifying the city with trees and flowers. Waste is also 
being utilised for other positive purposes. "We are looking at wastes as 
a tool of job creation and poverty reduction," says Oresanya. He added 
that waste management has created direct jobs for 350 people. Some of 
them are employed in recycling plants, including one that converts 
organic wastes into compost and another that converts plastic sachets 
into pellets.

Oresanya says about 3,000 other people make an indirect living from the 
city’s waste. At dumpsites in the city, hundreds of unemployed youths 
can be seen scavenging to recover paper, metals, plastics and other 
useful wastes. "I can tell you that waste is a way of keeping some 
people busy," says Oresanya. LAWMA says it has an ambitious project for 
2008. A priority is to double the quantity of waste recycled. "Before 
the end of this year we want to expand the intake of our recycling 
plants," he says. "We have a lot of jobless youths around here and we 
need to create jobs for people. Recycling will create jobs for our people."

He is confident that LAWMA will achieve its objective for 2008. "We have 
the political mindset, we have the commitment, and the government is 
investing and partnering with investors in that direction."

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