E-waste management awareness on the rise

More and more organisations in SA are becoming aware that there is legislation making it illegal to dump electronic waste (e-waste).

This was one of the key findings of the ITWeb-Africa eWaste E-Waste Survey, which ran online for a fortnight, attracting 163 responses.

In a similar survey last year, 51.12% of respondents said they are aware of legislation criminalising the abandonment of e-waste, while 48.88% were unaware. This time, the percentage of those aware of the laws has risen to 55.86% and the percentage of those unaware has dropped to 44.14%.

Ulze van Wyk, MD of Africa eWaste, says this is a positive development. “More people are becoming aware. However, I was under the impression that it would have been higher. Therefore, I must admit, I am a bit disappointed in this figure,” she says.

“Most people are driven by law, and if they know it's legal or, in this case, illegal to dump, they will make a plan to do the right thing. This shows we have to do more to educate the public on this point,” Van Wyk adds.

On another positive note, the survey discovered that the majority of respondents (59.31%) prioritise the safe disposal of e-waste in their organisations. However, 35.86% noted that they do not prioritise safe disposal, though they are willing to do so. Only 4.83% do not prioritise safe disposal without willingness to do so.

Nonetheless, she says there are some that do not have an individual staff member dealing with e-waste, and they do not care about the law or data.

“These are the dangerous ones, as their organisations think they are doing it correctly [by outsourcing e-waste management].

“They don't bother to check if the dealer adheres to the correct disposal methods. I personally have been to collection sites where these organisations take the serial number off the equipment so as not to have the equipment traced back to them.”

It also emerged that most organisations (36.55%) take e-waste to a collection site when disposing of it. Over a quarter of the respondents (25.52%) said their companies provide e-waste services to employees.

Nonetheless, 22.76% revealed they dispose of their e-waste with the rest of their trash, with 9.66% saying they take it to municipal dumpsites.

The research also asked the respondents if their organisations have policies in place on the disposal of redundant IT equipment. The majority (53.1%) have such a policy, while 24.83% do not, with the remainder unsure.

Van Wyk believes having a policy on what an organisation is going to do with the equipment at the end of its life cycle and communicating this to all staff is important. She says some of the benefits of having such a policy include reducing the cost of ownership as well as storage or warehouse costs.

When asked to describe their e-waste policies, 32.47% said they are internally developed and conform with legislation, while 23.38% said their policies follow the E-Waste Association of SA's (eWasa) best practice guidelines. On the other hand, 12.99% said that, although their policies are internally developed, they do not conform to legislation.

Those organisations that do not dispose of e-waste in the correct manner were asked why this is the case. The majority (26.03%) said they prefer to donate it, while 17.81% said they are worried about data protection or sanitisation. Meanwhile, a joint 16.44% said they either prefer to sell the e-waste to staff or they do not have a particular reason for not disposing of it correctly.

Others reasons cited were ignorance of the legislation (13.7%); can't afford staff to spend time on this (5.48%); logistical costs (4.11%); warehouse costs (4.11%); and sanitisation costs (2.74%).

According to Van Wyk, donations are not a problem if handled correctly. However, she points out that, in her experience, she has found that while many organisations are donating, “all they really are doing is dumping the equipment at the [donor] organisations.

“Most of them store the equipment in a locked-up room somewhere. Most of the equipment is faulty and the ones that do work don't have the programs the organisations need, and they cannot afford to buy, so they end up not using anything.”

The survey also discovered that most organisations (57.55%) are not affiliated to eWasa. Only 8.63% are members of the organisation, with the rest uncertain.

It also emerged that the majority of companies (38.13%) use an e-waste collection agent, but 33.09% do not. Some 38% noted that they do not face any challenges when trying to dispose of e-waste through agents. However, 20% said, in most cases, the agents are slow to collect the e-waste while 18% said their quantities are too small to use agents.

When disposing of e-waste, most of the respondents said they are concerned about losing data.

When sanitising e-waste such as hard drives, the majority (33.33%) format them, with 17% saying they do not sanitise them.

The survey also investigated whether legal implications and security risks associated with data leakage are key motivators to organisations when appointing a refurbisher or recycler. Some 39.68% said “yes”, while 22.22% do not have a refurbisher or recycler.