Relevance of E-Waste Legislation in Developing Countries: Analysing Ghana’s Recently Introduced E-Waste Regulatory Policy
(2022) In IIIEE Master Thesis IMEM01 20221The International Institute for Industrial Environmental Economics
- Abstract
- E-waste has had unwanted effects on the economy, health and physical environment of developing countries. E-waste activities in most developing countries including Ghana are dominated by the informal sector. Ghana, over the period, has had support from international organisations to manage its e-waste crisis. However, efforts to salvage the situation are often stymied by a myriad of factors. In 2016 therefore, Ghana passed a regulatory policy – Act 917 – to specifically deal with e-waste, supported by other frameworks such as a regulatory instrument (LI2250), a technical guideline for environmentally sound e-waste management, and an e-waste-specific policy which is currently being developed.
Ghana’s recently introduced regulation can be... (More) - E-waste has had unwanted effects on the economy, health and physical environment of developing countries. E-waste activities in most developing countries including Ghana are dominated by the informal sector. Ghana, over the period, has had support from international organisations to manage its e-waste crisis. However, efforts to salvage the situation are often stymied by a myriad of factors. In 2016 therefore, Ghana passed a regulatory policy – Act 917 – to specifically deal with e-waste, supported by other frameworks such as a regulatory instrument (LI2250), a technical guideline for environmentally sound e-waste management, and an e-waste-specific policy which is currently being developed.
Ghana’s recently introduced regulation can be juxtaposed with the WEEE and RoHS Directives which work with the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). However, the problem is how effective a regulatory policy such as Act 917 is in managing an informally-dominated sector whose crude recycling approaches have had great environmental and health impacts. To investigate this, key stakeholders within the e-waste sector were interviewed. On the effectiveness of the Act, the challenges confronting them, and their involvement in the design and implementation process. The findings showed that key stakeholders were represented at various stages of the process, with informal recyclers provided with training programmes, health centres, and an incentive scheme to minimise burning EEE. There however exist many challenges to the sound management of the sector, particularly, the lack of end-to-end recycling facilities; registering and formalising the sector; and sequencing of the e-waste policy and regulatory framework. Adapting the analytical framework and intervention theory, the research concludes by recommending areas for future studies. Key among them is conducting an LCA to compare the impact of e-waste imported to Ghana and that exported outside Ghana to be recycled and the best business model to support the e-waste sector. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
http://lup.lub.lu.se/student-papers/record/9097073
- author
- Bimpong, Frank LU
- supervisor
- organization
- course
- IMEM01 20221
- year
- 2022
- type
- H2 - Master's Degree (Two Years)
- subject
- keywords
- E-Waste Management, Informal Recyclers, Policy Evaluation, Stakeholder Participation, Intervention Theory
- publication/series
- IIIEE Master Thesis
- report number
- 2022:11
- ISSN
- 1401-9191
- language
- English
- id
- 9097073
- date added to LUP
- 2022-08-15 13:42:05
- date last changed
- 2022-08-15 13:42:05
@misc{9097073,
abstract = {{E-waste has had unwanted effects on the economy, health and physical environment of developing countries. E-waste activities in most developing countries including Ghana are dominated by the informal sector. Ghana, over the period, has had support from international organisations to manage its e-waste crisis. However, efforts to salvage the situation are often stymied by a myriad of factors. In 2016 therefore, Ghana passed a regulatory policy – Act 917 – to specifically deal with e-waste, supported by other frameworks such as a regulatory instrument (LI2250), a technical guideline for environmentally sound e-waste management, and an e-waste-specific policy which is currently being developed.
Ghana’s recently introduced regulation can be juxtaposed with the WEEE and RoHS Directives which work with the principle of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR). However, the problem is how effective a regulatory policy such as Act 917 is in managing an informally-dominated sector whose crude recycling approaches have had great environmental and health impacts. To investigate this, key stakeholders within the e-waste sector were interviewed. On the effectiveness of the Act, the challenges confronting them, and their involvement in the design and implementation process. The findings showed that key stakeholders were represented at various stages of the process, with informal recyclers provided with training programmes, health centres, and an incentive scheme to minimise burning EEE. There however exist many challenges to the sound management of the sector, particularly, the lack of end-to-end recycling facilities; registering and formalising the sector; and sequencing of the e-waste policy and regulatory framework. Adapting the analytical framework and intervention theory, the research concludes by recommending areas for future studies. Key among them is conducting an LCA to compare the impact of e-waste imported to Ghana and that exported outside Ghana to be recycled and the best business model to support the e-waste sector.}},
author = {{Bimpong, Frank}},
issn = {{1401-9191}},
language = {{eng}},
note = {{Student Paper}},
series = {{IIIEE Master Thesis}},
title = {{Relevance of E-Waste Legislation in Developing Countries: Analysing Ghana’s Recently Introduced E-Waste Regulatory Policy}},
year = {{2022}},
}