In an industrial area outside Kenya's capital city, workers in hard hats and white masks take shiny new power drills to computer parts. This assembly line is not assembling, though. It is dismantling some of the estimated 50 million metric tons of hazardous electronic waste the world generated last year.
The amount of electronic waste generated globally last year is enough to fill 100 Empire State Buildings and represents more than 15 pounds (6.8 kilograms) for every living person, according to the UN Environmental Programme. Much of that e-waste is exported to developing countries like India and Kenya in the form of used goods, where it ends up in landfills or is burned, putting lead, arsenic and mercury into the environment.
"A lot of e-waste is shipped to these countries in order to get rid of it," said Ruediger Kuehr, the executive secretary of Solving the E-Waste Problem, a Germany-based organization coordinated by the UN.
Impoverished Nairobi residents collect end-of-life electronics for processing. In Nairobi's Mukuru slum, women pick through dumpsites or purchase discarded material from electronics repair shops. They earn about US$2 for a CRT tube-style television. If dumped, that television would have released 6.5 pounds (3 kilogrames) of lead into the environment.
East African Compliant Recycling funds its operations by selling high-tech waste to countries like the UK, China and Hong Kong with the machinery to isolate the precious metals and rare minerals from the scrap. High-grade motherboards can contain platinum, gold and silver. New products also pose a growing problem, as cheap gadgets become more widespread. Kuehr said more e-waste is generated in developing and transitioning countries than in the developed world. The UN says that while the world's 7 billion people have 4.5 billion toilets, they also have 6 billion phones.
President Uhuru Kenyatta in June signed regulations requiring e-waste be disposed of at government-licensed facilities meeting international standards. More detailed regulations written into an environmental act are pending.
PHOTO: A worker uses an electric screwdriver to dismantle a printer for recycling. (CREDIT: AP)