27April
South Africa is sitting on an e-waste time bomb, with only 7% to 12% of all e-waste in the country being processed through formal recycling channels.
This is according to Sandile Ndlovu, an assistant researcher at the Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures at the University of the Free State, who believes universities should lead the recycling shift.
“The statistics are quite shocking. If we look at the amount of e-waste that is being formally recycled in South Africa, it is about 7% to 12%,” Ndlovu told Cape Talk.
“That is a very low recycling rate of e-waste, given that South Africa is the second largest producer of e-waste on the African continent. We are second behind Egypt.”
