Essay on Development Policy

The Role of E-waste in Development Approaches to Alleviate

Urban Poverty

Overview with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean

Maya Wolfensberger - Nadel MAS Cycle 2008/2010

April 2010

II

Table of Contents

TABLE OF CONTENTS ..................................................................................................................... II

ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................................................................ III

1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................................... 1

1.1 Main objective ................................................................................................................................. 1 1.2 What is e-waste?............................................................................................................................. 3

2 RECENT E-WASTE DEVELOPMENT IN LAC............................................................................ 5

2.1 E-waste growth in LAC.................................................................................................................... 5 2.2 Formal e-waste management.......................................................................................................... 5 2.3 Informal e-waste management........................................................................................................ 6 2.4 Legal regulation systems for WEEE................................................................................................ 7

3 DEVELOPMENT APPROACHES TO ALLEVIATE POVERTY......................................................... 9

3.1 General observations ...................................................................................................................... 9 3.2 E-waste-related development approaches.................................................................................... 10

4 GENERAL CONCLUSIONS................................................................................................... 13

5 LIST OF REFERENCES........................................................................................................ 15

III

Abbreviations

B2B Business to Business

CRT Cathode Ray Tube

EMPA Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Testing and Research

EPR Extended Producer Responsibility

EU European Union

GTZ German Technical Cooperation Agency

ICT Information and Telecommunications Technology

IDRC International Development Research Center (Canada)

LAC Latin America and the Caribbean

MDG Millennium Development Goals

OECD Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development

PC Personal Computer

PWB Printed Wired Board

RELAC Regional Platform for E-waste in Latin America and the Caribbean

SECO State Secretariat for Economic Affairs

WEEE Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment

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1 Introduction

1.1 Main objective

The number of people living in urban centers is growing worldwide. Latin America is

characterized by the worldwide highest urbanization rate reaching 79%. In other developing

regions, Asia and Africa, the rate reaches 42.5% and 39.9% respectively (United Nations

Population Division 2010). Many people in developing country cities depend on recycling

materials from waste for their livelihoods. The presence of poor and marginalized social groups

who resort to waste picking for income generation is widespread throughout urban areas of the

developing world. For Latin American cities it is reported that up to 2% of the population depend

on waste picking to earn their livelihood (Medina, 2000). The informal municipal solid waste

management sector is characterized by small-scale, labor-intensive, largely unregulated and

unregistered, low-technology manufacturing or provision of services (Wilson, et al. 2001).

Formal municipal solid waste1 management services in developing countries are often deficient

and characterized 1) inadequate service coverage, 2) operational inefficiencies of services, 3)

limited utilization of recycling activities, 4) inadequate management of non industrial hazardous

waste, and 5) inadequate landfill disposal (Zurbrügg and Schertenleib, 1998). The waste itself

has often no recognized value to the formal system. Thus, the utilization of recycling activities is

generally largely dominated by the informal sector. Informal waste pickers handling municipal

solid waste are exposed to occupational health and accident risks related to the content of the

materials they are handling, emissions from those materials, and the equipment being used

(Cointreau, 2005).

With the focus of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) on poverty reduction, one of the

major challenges in municipal solid waste management in developing countries is how best to

deal with the informal waste management sector and to improve their livelihoods and working

conditions. Waste recycling and resource recovery is an effective way to reduce the need for

landfill areas and to save natural resources and furthermore should be the first step in a sound

waste management as being recommended by the Agenda 21. Despite the health and social

problems associated with informal recycling, the informal sector provides significant economic,

social and environmental benefits. Environmental benefits are mainly related to putting

secondary materials into the production cycle and thereby avoiding extraction impacts of

primary resources (Waste and Skat, 2007). Waste pickers also reduce municipal expenses for

1 Municipal solid waste comprises refuse from households, non-hazardous solid waste from industrial, commercial

and institutional establishments, market waste, yard waste and street sweepings (Schübeler, et al. 1996)

2

garbage collection, decreasing the need for garbage trucks and sanitation workers, and

increasing the lifespan of landfills. Nevertheless, the attitude towards the informal recycling

sector is often very negative, regarding it as backward, unhygienic and generally incompatible

with a modern waste management system (Wilson, et al. 2006).

Waste and Skat (2007) point out that the integration of the informal sector into recycling,

collection, and processing activities and their optimization and its recognition by formal

authorities offers significant opportunities for poverty alleviation and improvement of the urban

environment.

The recognition of the informal sector is already a reality in many cities of Latin America and the

Caribbean (LAC) and its integration into formal, modernized municipal solid waste activities is

still limited but increasing. Authorities in developing countries are more and more recognizing

the limited effectiveness of simply copying approaches to municipal solid waste management

used in industrialized countries and the advantages of actively integrating the informal sector

into their waste management planning.

Recent developments have however led to an

important change in the composition of

municipal waste stream. Decreasing prices of

Information and Telecommunication

Technologies2 (ICT) and declining

obsolescence rates have led to large and

rapidly growing quantities of end-of-life

electrical and electronic equipment to be

disposed of. As authorities have failed to

establish an efficient and sustainable e-waste

management system in LAC, many of these

appliances are now found in municipal waste

streams. E-waste has been discovered as a

new and economically attractive source of

income by a growing number of informal

waste pickers. On the one hand, their activity

contributes to the recovery of valuable

resources and the avoidance of energy-

2 Information and telecommunication technologies refer to the use of technology for the input, processing, storage

and transfer data and the output of information. It includes devices such as PCs, televisions, mobile telephones, radio etc.

Foto 1: E-waste dumping place in Chile (Wolfensberger)

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intense primary raw material extraction. On the other hand, informal e-waste recycling is

associated with considerable environmental and public health risks, emerging from the

inappropriate handling and disposal of e-waste.

This report discusses the role of e-waste in development approaches to alleviate urban poverty

with a focus on LAC. Chapter 2 gives an overview of the recent development in formal and

informal e-waste management and relevant legal regulations system. In chapter 3, development

approaches to alleviate poverty in the waste management sector are discussed. In chapter 4,

knowledge gaps are identified and potential contributions of the recognition of the benefits of the

informal recycling sector towards the MDGs are examined.

1.2 What is e-waste?

E-waste, also referred to as e-scrap, or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE)

describes discarded, obsolete, broken, electrical or electronic devices. According to the EU

WEEE Directive, e-waste includes 10 different types of devices among which are small and

large electric household appliances (such as microwaves or washing machines), information &

communication equipment (such as PC’s, laptops or printers) and entertainment & consumer

electronics (such as televisions or DVD players), but also further devices such as lightning

equipments, toys or medical instruments. However, the definition of e-waste by these categories

does not consider social implications. E-waste can be seen as an electrical or electronic device

that has no further use to the owner. However, it might still be useful to a second user that

extends the devices’ life cycle by reusing or refurbishing it, or by selling it to a third user.

Consequently, “e-waste” is not an easy term to define. The Organization for Economic

Cooperation and Development OECD (2001) has defined e-waste as “Any appliance using an

electric power supply that has reached its end-of-life”. However, until today there is no generally

accepted definition for the term “e-waste” (Widmer, et al. 2005).

In this report, WEEE and e-waste are used as synonyms. It is referred in the first place to ICT

equipment.

With regard to e-waste management, there are controversial issues featuring several risks and

opportunities on a global scale.

E-waste creates a variety of opportunities. The industry specialized in the recovery of the

valuable raw materials contained in e-waste such as gold or palladium is constantly growing.

But also the refurbishing and small-scale recycling creates employment, especially in

developing countries. Moreover, the comparison of environmental impacts of e-waste recycling

to the primary production of all raw materials demonstrates that e-waste recycling offers

opportunities from an environmental perspective (Hischier, et al. 2005).

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The risks associated to e-waste in the first place emerge from the toxic substances contained in

it, such as lead, mercury, arsenic, cadmium, selenium or hexavalent chromium or flame

retardants. These substances pose a risk to human health and the environment if they are not

disposed of or handled properly.

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2 Recent e-waste development in LAC

2.1 E-waste growth in LAC

In many developing countries, flows of electric and electronic waste have never been quantified

due to the lack of data and missing take-back schemes (Mueller, et al. 2009). Thus, quantities of

e-waste in LAC, such as in other developing regions can only be estimated. On a global scale,

estimations currently range from 20–25 million tons per year (Robinson, 2009). The main

volume is produced in North America followed by Europe and Asia (Siemers and Vest, 1999).

Large amounts of the e-waste generated in industrialized countries end up in developing

countries such as India, China, Nigeria or Ghana (Agarwal, 2005, Puckett and Smith, 2002, Iles,

2004), often falsely declared as secondhand computers. Illegal E-waste imports from

industrialized countries into LAC seem to be less important. Countries in LAC are first of all

challenged by rapidly growing waste streams, which are mainly provoked by their own ICT use.

Countries in Latin America and the Caribbean are experiencing a worldwide unrivaled increase

in ICT use. This trend can be observed in the sales of ICT equipment and the rise in internet

usage. According to Internet World Stats (2010), it experienced an almost 900% increase from

2000 to 2009. The average internet penetration rate of 30% in LAC is higher than the world

average of 26%. It is much more pronounced than in other developing regions (1.5 times higher

than Asia and about 4 times higher than in Africa) (Internet World Stats, 2010). The high growth

rates in IT-sales combined with increasing obsolescence rates result in escalating waste of end-

of-life computers and other IT equipment. It is estimated that 120’000 tons of computer waste

were generated in 2008 in Latin America and anticipated that this amount will triple by 2015

(Boeni, et al, 2008).

2.2 Formal e-waste management

Most countries in LAC have a formal e-waste recycling infrastructure, often provided by former

metal recycling companies which discovered the emerging e-waste recycling market. Their

service provision is mostly limited to a disassembly of ICT equipment. Disassembled parts are

exported to refineries abroad specialized in the recovery of valuable resources contained in e-

waste, such as platinum, or gold. The e-waste recycling business in LAC involves relatively high

transport costs and delays in payments. Non-valuable parts mostly remain in the country and

are landfilled. E-waste recycling businesses concentrate their service on large companies in the

urban centers, offering them an environmentally sound option to dispose of their obsolete ICT

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equipment by charging a certain fee per ton, following a so-called B2B approach3. E-waste

recycling businesses in LAC process constantly

growing, but after all modest quantities of e-waste. In

Chile for instance, formal recycling of IT-waste in 2007

reached only an estimated 1.5-3% of the quantities

generated (Steubing 2007).

There are successful social initiatives for computer

refurbishment, with the objective to reduce the digital

divide4 by providing used computers to schools and

low-income households, often targeted to benefit poor

rural areas. Initiatives like “Computadores para Educar”

of the Colombian Ministry of Education, the most

successful program in LAC in terms of coverage and

number of refurbished computers, have substantially

contributed to create awareness on the social and

environmental benefits by extending the computer’s life

cycle.

2.3 Informal e-waste management

The informal e-waste recycling sector does not only consist of marginalized and poor waste

pickers, but also well-organized small-scale businesses with good networks. Generally, informal

e-waste recycling is characterized by efficient

nets of re-collectors and downstream vendors.

Observed informal recycling practices vary

between countries; however there are certain

patterns which seem to apply for LAC in general.

The accrued informal e-waste recycling in LAC is

mainly limited to the manual dismantling and

sorting into valuable fractions, such as printed

wiring boards, cables or metals. The valuable

fractions are either sold as reusable components

3 The Business to Business (B2B) Approach describes a transaction between businesses. In the context of e-waste it

refers to the service of a recycling company to receive obsolete equipment from a company. 4 The term refers to the unequal access by some members of society to computers and the Internet, and the unequal

acquisition of related skills.

Foto 2: Formal recycler in Chile (Wolfensberger)

Foto 3: Informal recycling in Argentina (Wolfensberger)

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or as scrap to formal e-waste recycling businesses, as in the case of the economically most

attractive component, the Printed Wired Boards (PWBs). They are sold to formal recycling

companies which hold contracts with refineries overseas. Invaluable materials such as batteries

or Cathode Ray Tube (CRT) glass are being disposed off in the streets or open dumping places.

In some cases, a so-called backyard recycling can be observed where gold is being recovered

from PWBs, using several hazardous substances and materials such as strong acids, similar to

informal processes spreadly used in the Indian informal e-waste sector (Keller, 2006). Further

income opportunities are offered by using the reuse potential of obsolete equipments: In Chile

for instance, many informal recyclers use to dismantle computer waste for selling undamaged

parts in flea markets to new users (Wolfensberger 2009). Selling the parts as products, instead

of selling them as scrap, allows them to create an added value.

Informal e-waste recycling is associated with environmental and health risks mainly rising from

inappropriate practices which are used due to lack of awareness. Components without any

further economic or reuse value are often openly burnt or disposed off in open dumps resulting

in emission of hazardous substances into air, soil and water. Working conditions and

occupational safety are often precarious. Informal e-waste workers often suffer from health

effects such as respiratory problems due to shredding or burning of e-waste, or injuries from

cuts and acids, and risk also chronic health problems such as cancer.

2.4 Legal regulation systems for WEEE

All countries in LAC (except Haiti) have signed The Basel Convention on the Control of

transboundary Movements of Hazardous Wastes and their Disposal5. Nevertheless, huge

amounts of e-waste are still exported to developing regions, especially to Asia and Africa. A final

approval of the Ban Amendment to the Basel Convention from 1995, which intends to tackle this

problem by prohibiting any export of hazardous wastes from industrialized to developing

countries, is still pending as the required 75% signatures of signatory countries are not achieved

by now.

National legislations, which determine e-waste management regulations, are still in their early

stages in LAC. Each country follows its individual procedure. In some countries, regulations

even vary between state and federal level, as in Brazil (Boeni, et al. 2008). This applies also to

some extent to Argentina, where each province has a separate authorization procedure for

transporting hazardous waste (Sony, 2009). Apparently little experience is exchanged on a

regional level. The result is a patchwork of rules and regulations governing e-waste

5 The International framework for hazardous waste (including e-waste). The convention was adopted in Basel,

Switzerland, in 1989 and entered into force in May 1992.

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management. There is an ongoing discussion about the (legal) hazardousness of e-waste

taking place in similar ways in countries of LAC. Parts of computer- and other electronic waste

are classified as hazardous (Basel Convention, EU-WEEE-Regulation, etc.). Countries in LAC

comply with laws and conventions on hazardous waste. Hazardous waste such as waste from

mining, or toxic chemicals need to be treated with high security standards and require specific

transport and disposal systems. In some countries, these regulations are now applied to e-

waste as well. This renders e-waste management systems unnecessarily expensive. In Chile for

instance, computers are legally declared as hazardous waste, as soon as the owner wishes to

dispose of it (Contreras, 2009). This obliges users to recruit special transport companies for

hazardous waste if they wish to transport obsolete computers, obviously an exaggeration as

characteristics of the computer have not changed. Experiences from industrialized countries

show that it is not necessary to formulate specific regulations on the transport, treatment and

disposal of e-waste. However, attempts to create a legal base specifically for e-waste, without

strictly assigning it to municipal solid waste or hazardous waste, have failed so far. This

discussion shows that there is still confusion surrounding the characteristics of e-waste and the

adequate ways of dealing with it.

Recently there have been attempts to frame policy principles to implement Extended Producer

Responsibility (EPR) for WEEE. Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) is defined as an

environmental protection strategy that makes the manufacturer of the product responsible for

the entire life cycle of the product including the take back, recycling and final disposal of the

product (Lindhqvist, 2000). Thus, the producer’s responsibility for a product is extended to the

post consumer stage of a product's life cycle (OECD, 2001). In spite of accomplishing EPR

principles as required in many industrialized countries the producers and the manufacturers of

ICT Equipment such as Sony, LG, Dell etc., did not implement these policies in countries, where

they haven’t been obliged to, mostly developing countries. Therefore several countries in LAC

tackled the problem by framing private-public decrees and agreements, which stipulate EPR, or

by adapting the national waste legislation. These attempts are still evolving and the further

developments will show how successfully they will be implemented.

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3 Development approaches to alleviate poverty

3.1 General observations

Urbanization in developing countries has contributed to a growth in wealth, but has also been

accompanied by increasing incidence of poverty and a rapid increase in per capita waste

production. The informal recovery of materials from waste represents an important survival

strategy for disadvantaged populations throughout the developing world. While this livelihood

strategy makes a substantial contribution to urban poverty alleviation, it does expose informal

waste pickers to occupational health and accident risks. To tackle this burden, development

organizations with the participation of local governments have created approaches to improve

waste management systems and to alleviate poverty within the municipal solid waste

management sector. Among practitioners, it is undisputed that an improvement of municipal

solid waste management system is not reached simply by ignoring the informal sector.

However, no consensus is reached on how sustainable and poverty-reducing waste

management systems ought to be established.

The development approaches are often destined to directly improve the living conditions of

informal waste pickers by focusing on daily needs and welfare problems or the strengthening of

their political situation. Waste pickers have thus become the ‘targets’ of a number of

development approaches improving working and living conditions of waste pickers and reducing

child labor (ILO, 2004; Furedy 1997). According to Scheinberg, et al. (2006), these interventions

designed to “help” waste pickers tend to treat them as a social problem. They do not see waste

pickers as economic actors in the municipal solid waste and recycling system and thus fail to

regard waste pickers as important stakeholders in the waste management system. Often

development interventions studied neither consulted waste pickers as to their own priorities, nor

engaged them in solving their problems (ILO, 2004; Price and Castro, 2004; Furedy 1997). This

has sometimes led to the assumption that improving waste management is associated with the

eradication of the informal sector.

In order to approach waste pickers within development cooperation, projects need to consider

the dynamism of waste management and regard waste pickers as important stakeholders and

economic actors. Scheinberg, et al. (2006) point out that informal recycling and waste collection

activities must be seen as a legitimate part of the overall municipal solid waste management

system. Strategies must consider and anticipate how waste management systems change over

time in order to identify new economic and operational niches for the informal sector.

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3.2 E-waste-related development approaches

Growing informal e-waste recycling activities may be seen as a part of the dynamism how waste

management systems are evolving. E-waste is adding a new and challenging component which

development approaches in waste management will need to adapt to. Development projects

defending the integration of the informal sector into waste management planning must readjust

their activities by taking into account e-waste as a new and rapidly spreading source of income

with potentially hazardous effects on health and environment. So far, development projects in

municipal solid waste management which seek to integrate the informal sector have not

included specific approaches for dealing with growing e-waste quantities. This negligence may

be explained by the little knowledge that is available on how to deal with e-waste and informal e-

waste activities.

The serious health and environmental impacts associated with informal e-waste recycling

activities tempt to come back to the approach that informal recycling activities must be

eliminated. This is however hardly achievable in LAC and other developing regions. Reasons

why it is not recommended to target an eradication of informal e-waste recycling practices,

besides cutting an important source of income for poor and marginalized people, is the anyhow

insufficient formal infrastructure for collection, recycling and disposal of e-waste. A lot of e-waste

would thus simply end up in dumping places. Furthermore, even if the formal recycling sector

were able to cover generated e-waste quantities, the informal sector would still get huge

amounts of material through their efficient nets of collection. Instead of demonizing their

activities, it must be considered that the informal sector offers a huge potential for improving the

e-waste management system, for instance, by preventing e-waste from being landfilled. The

landfilling of e-waste is associated with huge losses of valuable natural resources and

environmental impacts through leaching into soil and water. The informal sector also offers a

great potential for incrementing reuse of e-waste by segregating and selling the reusable

fraction. From an environmental perspective, reuse is always a preferred option to recycling

because it consumes less energy and resources.

In the framework of the SECO/EMPA Program ‘Knowledge partnership in e-waste recycling’

aiming to assess and improve electronic waste recycling systems in developing countries,

models on how to integrate the informal sector into sustainable e-waste management have

been developed. These approaches have considered the informal sector as a key component of

established e-waste management systems. Instead of trying to cut informal e-waste recycling

activities, approaches have focused on finding suitable niches for the informal sector which

allow reducing health risks and environmental impacts. These approaches have from the

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beginning laid the focus on improving the overall recycling system, rather than improving

working and living conditions of informal waste pickers. Thus, the informal sector has been

regarded as an important stakeholder to be integrated in a more sustainable e-waste

management system.

The potential for integrating the informal sector depends on the process within the recycling

chain. While it is appropriate to integrate the informal sector in the collection, manual

dismantling and separation process, it is not the case for more sophisticated recycling

processes or final disposal. The challenge lies in how to bring the informal sector to abandon

bad practices and adopt more sustainable ones. This may be achieved by capacity building

pointing out the hazardousness of the baseline scenario, and proposing safer processes. While

it is crucial to provide training for safe working conditions, including sound processing and

health issues, it is extremely difficult to approach thousands of people working in informal e-

waste recycling. Even if the information dissemination of best practices is somehow managed, it

is still rather unsure that they will be adopted if it is only for the sake of improving health and

environment issues. This especially applies if better practices will be associated with additional

financial expenses. As informal waste management is economically-driven, it is necessary to

offer economic incentives in order to reach a broad change in behavior.

In the framework of the SECO/EMPA Program, two models following this notion have been

developed. The models propose to disseminate better practices in terms of health and

environment and have been developed for the situation in India and Chile respectively:

By promoting business models with higher revenue than the usual baseline scenario (India): As proposed by Rochat, et al. (2008), the alternate business model proposes Indian

recyclers to accumulate PWBs until they obtain the minimal required amount to be shipped

to an integrated and precious metal refinery abroad, instead of dismantling and segregating

the boards themselves for gold recovery with backyard recycling techniques as described by

Keller (2006). The model contains detailed information on cost and benefits for Indian

recyclers and potential barriers to implement it.

By changing the economic framework (Chile): Wolfensberger (2010) proposes to

influence the recycling chain externally by offering the informal sector money for e-waste in

order to avoid bad practices. Under this principle, e-waste is bought back at decentralized

dropping stations and then conferred to formal recycling businesses. Further informal

groups may be included in the formal recycling processes for labor-intensive manual

operations such as dismantling and material segregation. The external costs must be either

integrated in the EPR framework, committing the producers to buy back their products at the

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end of their life cycle, and/or by entrusting the municipalities which benefit from lower costs

for landfilling and e- waste transport costs.

Both approaches aim for a formalization of the informal sector and its integration into a more

sustainable e-waste recycling system. Integrated recycling systems bear the advantage to profit

from informal networks and thus allow establishing a more efficient collection system.

Meanwhile, employment in the poorest strata of the population is being maintained or increased.

Furthermore, both approaches took into account preferred livelihood strategies by closely

working together with informal groups.

There are however multiple reasons for the difficulty to implement development projects that

seek to integrate the informal sector into sustainable e-waste management systems.

1) The improvement of the overall e-waste management systems in the long run requires

an active participation of public and private entities. The successful integration of the

informal sector requires that stakeholders with decision power recognize the economic,

social and environmental benefits, which result from an integration of informal e-waste

recycling.

2) Often other political interests are placed over finding suitable solution for e-waste

management. As long as the establishment of sustainable e-waste management

systems has no political relevance, little efforts will be made to achieve them.

Furthermore, as e-waste in LAC is already a hard-fought business sector, it might be

even more difficult to raise poverty alleviation as an important issue. However, new

income opportunities may convince formal recyclers to recognize the benefits of

integrating informal e-waste recyclers.

3) Development projects that embrace the whole waste management system are time-

consuming. They need long-term commitment (at least 3 years) from supporting

organizations (Scheinberg, et al. 2006).

4) The implementation of measures is complex and may be costly; it is necessary to

combine them with citizen education, training and capacity building of waste pickers, the

formation of associations and activities on policy level. The implementing organization

needs sufficient financial resources to cover the broad spectrum of activities.

5) In-depth knowledge of the local structure and dynamics of the e-waste management is

needed (stakeholders, cost and benefits, risks and potentials, etc.) before starting

activities. There might be little potential for scaling-up interventions, as approaches that

worked in one context might not be successful in others.

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4 General conclusions

How to deal with the existing informal e-waste recycling sector has become a major challenge to

local and regional authorities in LAC. Several unplanned initiatives have been started to push

the informal e-waste management sector, e.g. by supporting cooperatives, without providing

them specific training or capacity building. On the other hand, development projects for poverty

alleviation in the municipal solid waste management sector have ignored e-waste as a growing

fraction in municipal waste streams, whereas it has already been discovered by waste pickers

as a new and attractive source of income. There is confusion around the correct handling of e-

waste and feasible approaches adapted to local and regional features are lacking. The

described models to integrate the informal waste management sector might be a possible

strategy towards sustainable e-waste management, there is however a lack of practice–related

experiences. There is need for further research and experiences from the practice. Important

issues are to examine real costs and benefits, for society and informal waste workers. A further

research topic worth pursuing could be to assess the cost and benefits for society by

considering social, environmental and economic aspects of not integrating the informal sector.

Not integrating informal e-waste practices in waste management planning is likely to result in

the failure of planned improvements. In the long-run it will presumably result in high negative

environmental and public health impacts.

Spies and Wucke (2004) have pointed out that the recognition of the benefits of informal

recycling activities may contribute to achieve Millennium Development Goals by 2015, in

particular:

• To halve the number of people with an income of less than a dollar a day

• To ensure environmental sustainability

• To develop a Global Partnership for Development with the private sector.

Nevertheless, the potential of e-waste to substantially contribute to urban poverty alleviation in

the waste sector might be limited. E-waste can offer higher income revenue only for a certain

number of cooperatives or independent waste pickers. Only small numbers of waste pickers are

helped with selective collection schemes and other system-based measures. In order to

guarantee that the MDGs are not met simply by reaching those who are already better off,

programs should ensure that they will reach the poorest groups among e-waste recyclers. To

target the poorest of the poor, may however have little prospect for success as they are often

difficult to access and tend to have a low level of organization.

Poverty alleviation and the improvement of waste management systems in developing countries

must go hand in hand; this applies both for e-waste and municipal solid waste. Waste pickers

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see both not as waste, but as an income-generating resource. There is need for finding niches

which enables them to continue gaining resources from waste, but in an environmentally,

socially and economically sustainable manner.

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