An E-waste Hand Over Centre aimed at providing incentives for sound disposal, collection and recycling of e-waste to reduce damage to the environment and safeguard human health has been inaugurated at Haatso in Accra.

The €20 million centre will serve as a collection point for e-waste projects and will offer some subsidies to informal e-waste collectors to send e-waste materials to the facility for proper disposal and sustainable recycling.

The initiative was born out of a strong partnership between the governments of Ghana, through the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) and the German Government, through the KfW.

At the inaugural ceremony, the MESTI Minister, Ophelia Mensah Hayford, said the project marked a significant achievement in Ghana’s quest for sustainable management of electronic waste.

“The inauguration of this facility marks a reflection of the success of the e-waste project, which has already demonstrated measurable success, including the safe collection of over 476.88 tonnes of e-waste cables, 37.03 tonnes of mixed batteries, 31.83 tonnes of thermoplastics and 87.00 sets of cathode ray televisions (CRT), which ordinarily would have been subjected to open burning to pollute the environment or left lying in the open environment,” she said.

She noted that a few years ago, the issue of burning e-waste at Agbogbloshie in Accra garnered both national and international attention.

Agbogbloshie gained notoriety as one of the largest e-waste dumping sites and the most polluted area in the world, she said.

“The crude methods used by informal waste collectors, particularly the open burning of e-waste to extract valuable metals, resulted in severe environmental degradation and caused significant health risks to the surrounding communities of Agbogbloshie and the nation,”  she stated, adding that numerous reports from global organisations highlighted the alarming levels of toxic substances, including heavy metals and hazardous chemicals that contaminated the air, soil, and water in and around Agbogbloshie,” she said.

Financing agreement

The minister said her ministry sought several ways to address the issue of improper management of e-waste.

Fortunately, she said the German Government, through KfW in 2017, signed a separate financing agreement with the Ghana government to support the sustainable management of electronic waste to reduce the effects of environmental pollution and health risks.

The objectives of the project were to support Ghana in setting up an incentive mechanism for sound disposal, collection and recycling of e-waste to reduce the damage to the environment and safeguard human health.

The project will also help to channel the worst polluting e-waste types from the informal sector into sound recycling and contribute to the development of a sustainable national recycling system in Ghana.

The collaboration with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies, and the E-waste Fund, alongside dedicated implementing consultants and partners had resulted in a system that incentivised safe e-waste disposal, creating over 450 green jobs and training more than 200 scrap dealers in the safe handling of e-waste, she added.

Curbing harm  

The Head of Cooperation at the German Embassy, Franziska Jebens,  said it was evident that as the world moved into the digital age, there would be an increased demand for electronic appliances and that would also lead to higher quantities of e-waste.

“So, handling those e-waste fractions in an adequate manner is of utmost importance because we are consciously aware of the harm e-waste causes to both humans and the environment if not disposed of properly,`’ she stated.