the Budapest-based project coordinator, thereby hoping to combine traditional and online environmental activism and campaigning to tackle e-waste in particular.
The importance of raising awareness through campaigns and lobbying cannot underlined enough. Consumers’ knowledge of e-waste can influence what they purchase, how they dispose of old technology, and whether they put pressure on their governments to take the issue more seriously.
Ultimately, re-use, refurbishment, and recycling are only stopgap measures that do not address the rising volume of e-waste. It is thus critical to lobby nationally and internationally to push for cleaner, greener ICT technology. The European Union’s new RoHS Directive, which bans new electrical and electronic equipment containing more than established levels of certain hazardous substances from the market, seeks to address the problem of e-waste at its source.
Nonprofits as green trailblazers
Alan Finlay, coordinator of an e-waste collection project out of Johannesburg, argues that organizations like APC, which champion the use of ICTs, have a responsibility to ensure that the promotion of technology does not compromise environmental and human health. Towards this end, e-waste should be a central organisational concern and major campaign issue, whenever possible.
Finlay runs the Gauteng Green e-Waste Channel, a pilot e-waste collection initiative in South Africa. He also authored APC’s November 2005 issue paper, which employed a case study of South Africa to highlight the e-waste challenges facing developing countries in general.
Most developing countries are only just beginning to develop basic waste management systems, and do not have the infrastructure nor the resources to effectively manage e-waste. Moreover, in light of pressing developmental challenges such as poverty alleviation and human health, e-waste is simply not seen as a priority. This underlies the lack of both e-waste legislation and recycling in developing countries.
While the challenges to sustainable management of e-waste are formidable, civil society can, and indeed must, support the responsible management of existing e-waste and the eventual phasing out of toxins in technology. Provisions can for instance be incorporated into project proposals, contracts, and budgets, thereby institutionalising solutions while also potentially heightening both donors’ and beneficiaries’ awareness of e-waste. ICT tools, of course, will be indispensable to these efforts.
The author is currently working with APC as an intern.
Photo: Society Promoting Environmental Conservation – no photographer noted