South Africa initiates an e-waste recycling pilot in Johannesburg to enhance recycling and waste management awareness and involvement of the community.

To address the ever-increasing e-waste crisis in Johannesburg, the South African government has introduced a pilot phase of the e-waste recycling initiative in Alexandra Township in said area of Johannesburg. The strategy to be adopted is led by the agency of Deputy Minister Bernice Swarts of the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment and seeks to reinforce recycling and waste management with sustainable community engagement.

The program will be a pilot project to test a feasible, scalable model of responsible recycling and waste management in collaboration with the City of Johannesburg, the Gauteng Department of Environment, and producer responsibility organizations (PROs). In the project, people will be educated about the threats that careless disposal of e-waste poses to the environment and motivated towards the implementation of new drop-off and collection opportunities.

It is estimated that South Africa produces more than 360,000 tonnes of e-waste every year, half of which is produced in Gauteng. However, it is recycled at most only 10 percent. Swarts noted that the legislation of the country does not allow dumping of e-waste in landfills, but the producers ought to safely recycle them according to the 2021 Extended Producer Responsibility law.

Officials think the project will not just enhance recycling and waste management but also generate employment as well as the unemployment of local small businesses. The pilot is one of the steps to the so-called circular economy whereby the materials are not disposed of but are used again.