"Nigeria: Public Health Implications of E-waste Dumping and Legal Efforts"

 
Nigeria: Public Health Implications of E-Waste Dumping and the International Law Effort by----------------------------------- Module no. ’s name Date Abstract Information and communication technology (ICT) has been evolving and growing faster than any area of knowledge and has been continuously leaving behind older technologies obsolete in no time. Along with this, every sphere of human activity is in one way or other being incorporated into the technology world and vice versa. Commodities and activities hitherto considered non-electronic are getting transformed into technology-linked categories. These changes have created a new kind of product range and along with that, a new kind of waste, namely, electronic waste. The cost involved in disposing of electronic waste prompts developed nations to use third world countries as their dumping yards of electronic waste and Nigeria has been a victim to this since 1980s. Recent studies have shown the gravity of health and environmental hazards created by this issue in Nigeria. The international and national legal infrastructures created to prevent the e-waste menace is made ineffective by a parallel illegal e-waste trafficking network. It is in this context that apart from governments and law mechanisms, public participatory groups need to take up the role of monitors. A new era of public intervention and awareness need to be developed in the developing world to prevent e-waste dumping in their back yards. Similarly, this awareness should be extended to the developed world community in the form of putting a self-disciplined control on indiscriminate consumerism and ‘use and throw’ attitudes. Index 1. The devil unmasked 2. The silent-killer waste 3. The economics of e-waste 4. Legal loopholes 5. Health hazards of e-waste dumping 6. Lesser laws, lesser mortals 7. Conclusion The devil unmasked The year was 1987. Unnoticed by the majority of the people in Koko, a suburb of Nigeria, a shipment arrived. The contents of this ship were stored for a while in a backyard. The drums were already damaged and soon started leaking (DiMento, 2003, p.112). Panic spread only when workers who were packing the 3800 tons of toxic waste for re-transporting them to Italy, suffered burns and paralysis. (Velte &Elsenpeter, 2008, p.24). When the authorities finally woke up to the seriousness of the issue, a 500 meter radius of land around the dump site was declared unsafe (Velte &Elsenpeter, 2008, p.24). Later it came to light that the drums contained toxic and radioactive electronic waste. They were simply labeled as substances relating to the building trade, and had been exported from Italy (Lamb & Friends of Earth, 1996, p.148). The government of Italy, after some face saving and evading attempts, agreed to take back the waste (Lamb & Friends of Earth, 1996, p.148). DiMento, Joseph F. C. (2003) The Global Environment and International Law, Texas: University of Texas Press, p.112. Velte, Anthony, Elsenpeter, Robert.C.(2008) Green IT: Reduce your Information System’s Environmental Impact while Adding to the Bottomline, McGraw-Hill Professional. Lamb, R., & Friends of Earth, (1996) Promising the Earth, Routledge. The issue of dumping of toxic electronic waste by developed countries in developing countries has become a burning issue since then. The reason behind and the purpose provoking this unethical action, can be understood from the CNN (cnn.com) report given below: There is increasing evidence that this new health and environment problem is arriving in shipping containers from western countries. Nigeria is one of the principal global destinations for e-waste –the catch-all term for discarded consumer electronics.