African countries are among the prime destinations of electronic waste (e-waste) also called Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and have been challenged with the management of its environmental and health impacts. This paper was carried out to understand the e-waste sector and policy responses in selected African countries. Data for the study were generated from sources; such as policy documents, legislations and literature. Findings show that the import of WEEE is on rising in Africa while landfill and incineration continued to be widely used handling approaches. Countries studied lack WEEE specific national policies and stringent policy instruments to enforce proper collection and recycling systems. Despite the start-ups in emerging recycling operations, a major gap is that informal e-waste actors dominate the e-waste chain from collection to material extraction and refurbish activities through rudimentary tools that cannot detect toxic elements. Tackling the problem demands integrated multi-actor interventions with multiple stakeholders to reduce WEEE inflow on one hand, and ramping up safe recycling capacity on the other hand.

Implications

The article attempts to explain the electronic waste problem in African countries, the nature of existing policy responses and limitations, and ways forward to address policy gaps. Electronic waste is a global problem but with local impacts with the hazardous substances it contains. Because E-waste is still not well recognized health and environment threat, less attention is given for the problem especially in African countries making the uneducated youth more vulnerable to toxic elements. The epistemic community, hence, is supposed to write about it and develop knowledge so that evidences for policy decision making would grow. The focus is on Africa because the problem needs special attention. E-waste has been dumped in Africa for long time and people who work with such waste are mostly uneducated and vulnerable to toxic substances. This problem requires certain attention in the scholarly and policy community at the international level.

中文翻译：

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重新审视某些非洲国家的电子废物管理实践

非洲国家是电子废物（e-waste）的主要目的地之一，也被称为电子电气设备废物（WEEE），并且在管理其环境和健康影响方面面临挑战。进行本文旨在了解选定的非洲国家中的电子废物部门和政策对策。研究数据来自资料来源；例如政策文件，法律和文献。调查结果表明，在非洲，WEEE的进口量正在增加，而垃圾填埋和焚烧仍是广泛使用的处理方法。被研究的国家缺乏WEEE特定的国家政策和严格的政策工具来实施适当的收集和回收系统。尽管出现了新兴的回收业务，一个主要的差距是，非正式的电子废物参与者通过无法检测有毒元素的基本工具主导着从收集到材料提取和翻新活动的电子废物链。解决该问题需要与多个利益相关者进行集成的多参与者干预，以一方面减少WEEE流入，另一方面提高安全回收能力。

含义

本文试图解释非洲国家的电子废物问题，现有政策对策和限制的性质，以及解决政策空白的方法。电子废物是一个全球性问题，但其中所含的有害物质也会对当地产生影响。由于电子废物仍然不是公认的健康和环境威胁，因此对该问题的关注较少，尤其是在非洲国家，这使得未受教育的青年更容易受到有毒元素的伤害。因此，认识论界应该对此进行写作并发展知识，以便为政策决策提供依据。重点放在非洲，因为这个问题需要特别注意。电子废物已经在非洲倾倒了很长时间，处理此类废物的人大多没有受过教育，并且容易受到有毒物质的伤害。