ACCRA, 22 July 2008 (IRIN) – At one of the many busy roadside shops in the capital, Accra, John Nuagbe displays the used, rusty and mostly broken electrical gadgets he recently imported from the USA.
Old TV sets, refrigerators, computers, fans, cookers – even blenders and electric irons. If it is used and electrical, it is likely he has one.
“Business is good, I just arrange with my business partners in the USA and the goods are shipped to me. They sell like hot cakes,” he explained.
The US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that in 2005 between 1.5 and 1.9 million tonnes of computers, TVs, VCRs, monitors, cell phones, and other electrical equipment were discarded in the USA.
In Ghana, with an annual per capita income of a little over US$600, these goods, which most people would never be able to afford new, are in demand.
“Our own people literally scavenge for these discarded items in Europe and America, package them and then ship them home,” said Adu Darkwa, the chief executive of the Ghana Standards Board. “They are dumped at the country’s ports and find their way… into many peoples’ homes.”
Energy drain
The trade is lucrative for the middle-men who source, ship and resell the goods, but Ghana’s government is concerned the ultimate cost of the trade is being passed on to the state.
Officials at the Ghana Energy Commission (GEC) say most if not all the products are energy inefficient, causing an unnecessary drain on the country’s scarce energy resources.
“The rate at which used gadgets are being imported, and their impact, is reaching crisis point,” GEC spokesperson Victor Owusu told IRIN.
The GEC estimates that a total ban on used refrigerator imports alone could yield an average energy saving of 550 kWh per refrigerator per year, and a monetary saving of over $35 per refrigerator per year.
Even more menacing is what happens to the gadgets once they get beyond repair.
Source: GhanaWeb
