How Kenya is striving to catch up with Germany in responsible e-waste management

There are over 62 million mobile phones in Kenya – more devices than people, at this rate. We know these gadgets will not last forever and at some point, need to be disposed of.

Have you ever thought of what to do with your old phone or what happens to it when you decide to throw it away? It has become a business for those in the electronic waste management space.

They take old phones, household appliances or computers and literally turn your waste into their treasure.

In Germany, old motherboards, CDs and even laptops; devices that have reached their end of life, find their way here to this recycling and reuse centre in Frankfurt called GWR-Recyclingzentrum.

This is where all the action happens. When your old device is brought in and then dismantled. The valuable elements are removed and sold to other partners and other scrap is disposed of responsibly.

The once useful appliances were reduced to scrap but look closely and one man’s trash is another man’s treasure.

“We are getting an average of 100 tons of e-waste each month, which the e-waste coming only from the city of Frankfurt. This amount fluctuates in volume and fractions of e-waste. During Covid-19 times, we got higher amounts because people cleaned out their homes. Nowadays it is a bit less, but steady. Increasingly, we are also getting e-waste from commercial users, not only private individuals,” says the GWR managing director Gregor Langweg.

It took some time though before residents of the city of Frankfurt could appreciate the work done here at GWR. In the past people would simply dump their old fridge or TV on the street.

“By working with the city of Frankfurt, we are offering a collection service from home users, which has increased the amounts of e-waste we are getting substantially. So we see that communication about our work is key. People need to know about our services. That is we also invite people to our facilities as much as we can,” Langweg notes.

The awareness is more than just having a place to dump old electronics and more about how those old devices are handled. Many have harmful chemicals that can damage the environment.

“Oftentimes, we are dealing with hazardous materials, e.g. machines that contain capacitors or, which is also a big problem, batteries especially lithium batteries posing a fire hazard. In these cases our job is to dismantle these hazardous machines into their parts, so to enable risk-free handling and recycling in the following process. But we also do that, of course, to extract valuable raw materials from these machines,” the GWR MD notes. 

It’s hard to believe that the hill behind me didn’t exist some 40 years ago. It’s a build-up of waste over decades. It’s a physical reminder of what bad waste management can get.

Now the recycling centre has changed this behaviour over the years. It serves as a lesson to get ahead of the problem to avoid such a scenario.

It’s the legacy of Germany’s industrial culture that groups like the E-waste Initiative Kenya or E-WIK are not willing to replicate here in Kenya, even as Kenya strives to further industrialise.

Here at E-WIK nestled in Kiambu County, they receive old electronics from old household appliances to even security and military equipment.

They are dismantled and some parts are reused, resold or disposed of responsibly. But the biggest business is in the extracted metals like copper, steel, aluminium, silver or gold found in old motherboards.

This motor from an old printer can be resold for any between 350 to 2,000 shillings.

Lawrence Thuo started the centre in 2011 after his business of supplying electronics to companies.

“We realised that there is a market for the second use of computers and we spoke to our clients and took their old gadgets and fixed them up and resold them. But those items wouldn’t last very long so we needed to take them and manage the parts at end of life,” says the E-WIK founder.

And from there, Thuo saw a market to recycle and find uses for some of the valuable components of old electronics.

But beyond he saw an opportunity to educate Kenyans on how to dispose of their electronic waste. Their sensitisation in various counties reveals a gap in e-waste management.

“Some people would throw their old phones in the toilet, or give their house girl or burn them which is dangerous. Some would just hold on to them,” he says.

One major negative effect on the environment is the heating of e-waste which results in the discharge of toxic compounds like lead or mercury into the air.

The risk of such poisonous substances seeping into the groundwater and soil increases, leading to respiratory issues and other health dangers.

E-WIK also trains unemployed youth in e-waste management by identifying the valuable parts of old electronics. They have trained hundreds, some of whom have gone on to start their own repair shops or e-waste management outfits.

Thuo hopes they will be the centre’s ambassadors and spread the e-waste management gospel, as they seek to change attitudes and spare the environment the dangers that sit in our old devices.