The UK is apparently dumping its e-waste on Africa, with computers and other items shipped illegally to countries such as Nigeria and Ghana, according to reports. Despite regulations prohibiting its trade, a joint investigation by Greenpeace, the Independent and Sky News claims thousands of old electronic goods and components leave Britain every day.
In an undercover sting, an unfixable TV was fitted with a tracking device and brought to Hampshire County Council for recycling. Instead of being safely dismantled in the UK or Europe like it should have been, the council's recycling company BJ Electronics passed it on as "second-hand goods" and it was shipped to Nigeria to be sold or scrapped.
Greenpeace commented, "For the first time we were able to track e-waste from door to door, exposing the loopholes in the recycling programmes that allow illicit profits to be made by the developed world's traders by dumping their obsolete and hazardous electronics abroad instead of properly recycling them."
Under Directive 2002/96/EC, on waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE), e-waste must be dismantled or recycled by specialist contractors because of the toxic content of many electrical devices. The three-year probe found that once dumped in Africa, the computers were stripped of their raw materials by young men and children working on poisoned waste dumps.
Hampshire County Council has launched an inquiry into its waste sites, but insisted that it worked only with dealers who exported functioning equipment.
