Export of e-waste to developing countries condemned

A Five-member research team led by a member of the Flemish Parliament in Belgium, Mr Rudi Daems, has expressed concern about the importation of old electronic equipment from Belgium to Ghana and the West-African sub-region as a whole.
The team, after two years of intensive research on the health and environmental effect of these goods, generally referred to as ‘e-waste’ in Africa and Asia, is calling on the Ghanaian government to ensure that foreign governments and stakeholders strictly comply with regulatory frameworks such as the Basel Convention on hazardous and other wastes that Ghana acceded to on May 30, 2003, and other directives by the European Union on electronic goods.
Mr Daems, who expressed this concern at a press conference in Accra, said the Basel Convention and these directives specified that the exportation of electronic goods from developed to developing countries could be done only on condition that they could be re-used or easily recycled.
He said Ghana had agreed to the importation of electronic goods out of Europe, however it had not ensured strict adherence of these agreements by the European Commission.
The purpose of his visit, he said, was also to convince public opinion and political leaders in Belgium/Europe that it was unacceptable for Western countries to allow the exportation of illegal goods to developing countries.
“There is not enough control in European harbours. That is why I will make a resolution for the Belgian and Flemish Parliament to stop the export of e-waste to developing countries by strengthening the inspection power in European harbours,” he stated, and pointed out that his aim was not to stop the importation of second-hand goods to Africa and Asia but the conditions had to be that the goods were 100 per cent re-usable and could be disposed of in an environmentally friendly way.
According to him, he and his crew did some research with the help of the Belgian Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and managed to trace some illegal containers leaving the harbour of Antwerp in Belgium towards the Tema harbour in Ghana.
“A few containers were stopped and sent back to the producer in Germany but other containers with ‘suspect’ content were not stopped because the vessel had already left the harbour when official documents were delivered to customs and the Belgian EPA,” he stated.
He disclosed that in total, 13 containers designated as ‘suspect’ arrived at the Tema Container Terminal and the MPS Terminal at the Tema Harbour.
Apparently, he said officials of the shipping company, MSC Suez, refused to attend a container inspection when their vessels, Julie Delmas and MSC Suez arrived in Tema on Sunday January 24, 2009.
He said the Customs and the EPA in Ghana had the authority to open these suspected containers without the consent of the shipping company (MSC Suez) as it happened in European harbours and therefore was calling on Customs in Ghana to also strengthen its inspection power, and hoped that the government of Ghana would swiftly act on the situation by sending back some containers with illegal e-waste to Europe.
That, he said, would be a strong symbolic statement to all countries in Europe.
Mr Deams, however, disclosed that the importation of these goods was legally forbidden if they could not be re-used as second-hand goods, noting that the basis for these legislation was that most electronic goods contained toxic materials that when burnt set free dioxins that were extremely dangerous to human health.
He explained that the Basel Convention on hazardous and other waste regulated the transboundary movement of these waste applying what he called the “Prior Informed Consent” procedure, which obliged every member country to ensure that hazardous wastes were managed and deposited in an environmentally sound manner.