When second-hand goods cross EU borders, the EPR fees associated with them are often retained by the exporting countries. This deprives importing countries of the ade quate financial support to handle products when they reach the end of their life cycle and have to be collected, dismantled, repaired, decontaminated, recycled or disposed of.

Recent research by the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) on the export of used electronics and vehicles from the EU to Africa estimates that African economies lose €340-380 million a year in EPR fees associated with second-hand electronics and €294.6-409.4 million for second-hand vehicles. This further strains the challenging economies of recipient countries, where financial resources for collection, remanufacturing and recycling are limited, so people resort to informal landfilling and incineration.

Since current EPR structures do not address the multiple-use cycle and cross-border trade of electronic devices such as computers, washing machines or mobile phones, African countries and the African Circular Economy Network are working on the creation of an Ultimate Producer Responsibility (UPR).

While the current EPR, created in the 1990s, manages waste at the national level, the UPR was created to manage waste at a global level, regardless of the country. It takes into account the international trade in second-hand items and provides a mechanism to encourage financial transfers from EU-based EPR programmes to countries that import second-hand products from Europe.

We discussed this with Jocelyne Landry Tsonang, non-executive director of the ACEN Foundation African Circular Economy Network.

When products are exported from the EU to Africa for reuse, the fees producers pay to support their waste management costs often do not get there with them. What can be done to regulate the second-hand products flow?

We are working on a UPR (Ultimate Producer Responsibility) for second-hand goods from Europe. I think Europe should pressure the African governments that receive these products to set up a framework that can really support the system and stimulate EPR at national level. We have huge quantities of clothes and cars coming from Europe and the US, and electronic equipment arriving from as far as Australia.

Some of the UPR resources need to be channelled towards the final destination of those second-hand products, so that, at the end of their life cycle, they can be used to support the recycling or clean disposal of cars, electronics, textiles and whatnot. The second-hand market is a huge business; most of these second-hand goods do not arrive in Africa for free, but as sales. That’s why a UPR is needed to ensure that governments support the end-of-life of these products. At the same time, foreign partners should use their leverage to strengthen the system.

What’s the current situation, without UPR?

Africa receives a lot of second-hand electronic equipment. More than 50% is frequently defective or has reached the end of its life cycle and can no longer be used. Often, those items are simply disposed of, with people from the informal sector trying to recover any valuable materials from them. Most of the time they have no technology, no know-how; they simply use the means they have, with damages to their health and the environment.

On the other hand, many African countries have a state-of-the-art metal recycling industry. Obtaining a kilogram of scrap metal is not very difficult, while obtaining a kilogram of plastic bottles is. One kilogram equals forty bottles, which are paid only ten cents, while metals are much better paid. Packaging paper is also widely collected. Today, the informal sector reduces the percentages of waste going to landfill and supports a recycling industry lacking in infrastructure and collection channels.

Is Extended Producer Responsibility applied in Africa?

Africa is a continent with 54 countries and as many governments, so it’s a very complex ecosystem. However, I don’t think it is misleading to say that EPR is still in its early stages there. Most countries are looking at how best to create EPR systems despite several obstacles to policy implementation.

The difficulties in data tracking represent a major barrier, because it’s impossible to be effective without timely and readable data. Many administrations don’t even know where to start because of the knowledge gap. The political environment around environmental issues is not as strict as in Europe. Governments are trying to address some of these limitations, but moving to the development and implementation phase is not easy.

Who should push for the creation of EPR systems?

The government should work together with companies. Deep stakeholder involvement is needed to make sure that all stakeholders in the value chain are in agreement. However, the environmental sustainability – or environmental awareness, even – of companies in Africa is very low, as they struggle with other issues such as access to capital, energy, and resources in general. For many African companies, sustainability is a luxury.

Naturally, this is not true for the big foreign corporations on the continent, which take advantage of the fact that local policies are not very structured nor regulated. There are some voluntary initiatives, but most of them can be labelled as greenwashing. The overall governance system is not very strong, but I don’t think the private sector will take the initiative. The implementation of EPR in Africa will have to come from governments.

But there must be exceptions. Which countries are an example of good practices?

South Africa is currently leading in terms of EPR policies. Although their system is far from perfect, the South Africans have made substantial progress, especially in the plastics and electronics supply chain. There are still gaps to be filled, because the policies’ main objective should be to encourage waste reduction: starting from design level, the producers should try to put as little potential waste on the market as possible.

Besides South Africa, Kenya and Ghana – which is one of the more advanced African countries in terms of sustainability – are also on the right track. Here, producers are setting up an organisation for EPR, although the model is still in the making. All these are mostly French-speaking countries. In Côte d'Ivoire, some large French corporations are trying to promote voluntary initiatives, but voluntary actions do not always have the best results. For example, they founded the AIVP – Association Ivoirienne pour la Valorisation des déchets Plastiques, gathering all Ivorian plastic producers.

What are the biggest challenges for the implementation of EPRs in Africa?

The first one is governance. Our governance structure, including policies, incentives, disincentives, and corruption, is the main obstacle. The second might be the lack of data. Another challenge is, as I said, the little awareness of sustainability among companies. People do not think that sustainability can be a lever for their business, partly because the African consumer market is not very demanding in that respect.

Very few people care to know how environmentally friendly a product is. Finally, the infrastructure for waste management is also a challenge, because the separation of waste itself varies immensely. Some places do not have a collection system and, even when there is one, everything is mixed – organic waste, plastic, electronics – and ends up in a landfill. This makes it difficult to obtain quality recyclable materials.

What could be improved in the near future?

Several shortcomings weakening the system. Regulations may consider the weight of plastic packaging, but not the colour and, therefore, the lower recyclability of some coloured plastics. Companies prefer to use attractive coloured packaging and be taxed on its weight and size, which makes it biased. Loopholes in terms of waste management and conflict of interest are also frequent because, for example, the companies that produce materials are sometimes also responsible for the recycling of plastic packaging.

The fees collected by companies for their end-of-life product management should be used to support the companies themselves, i.e. with training courses in eco-design, so as to make more environmentally friendly products. However, in countries like Cameroon, EPR revenues for plastic packaging do not go to the Ministry of the Environment, nor do they become subsidies for recycling, but end up in the national treasury. That money ends up being used for something very different from its initial purpose, with no direct impact on the sector.

Is this an investment problem? Do people not see value in waste? Is there a need for a change of mentality?

Sustainability is not a top priority for companies, but governments are not encouraging it, either. I think it is all about incentives. Also, the corruption in governance doesn’t help: EPR systems need transparency, and governments in many countries don’t have the means to keep track of every company and make sure their reporting is correct. We rely mainly on self-declaration, but most companies are not honest about it. This brings us back to the question of data. Incentives to ensure accurate reporting could really help create a decent system.

Waste still has value, everyone on the continent knows that. There is value in collecting it, but once again, since some people have been in government for a long time, we are tied to the status quo. I think pressure from abroad, for example from the EU, which is an important trading partner of Africa, could be a game changer. Then we could start with the available data, creating a system based on technologies like blockchain, which could really improve the level of accuracy and transparency.

This article is also available in Italian / Questo articolo è disponibile anche in italiano

Cover image: Giacomo Berardi, Unsplash