1. Introduction

As one of the main growing waste streams globally [1, 2], a phenomenal increase in the quantities of disposed waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE or e-waste) was globally recorded in more than a few parts [3, 4], therefore, seeking for interventions from policy makers and practitioners, as well as the scientific community. The quantity of disposed electrical and electronic equipment (EEE) has been described to increase at a high rate, especially in industrialized countries where markets are flooded with large volumes. Today, the short product lifecycles and rapid innovation in EEE production have resulted in large number of rather new products been thrown away [5, 6]. Estimations places the annual globally volume of generated e-waste to be between 20 and 50 million tonnes [1, 3, 7]. There have been substantial media reports on transboundary movement of WEEE in Nigeria [8]. Records in 2011 shows that Nigeria imported 1.2 million tonnes of new e-devices and generated e-waste of 1.1 million tonnes [9]. With these mounting quantities of WEEE, focus attention is now extended from how WEEE is managed to include reasons for the rising volume and avenues for it to be avoided [10].

shipped to the origin sources abroad. Up to 2011, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) had impounded five

Wastes from Industrialized Nations: A Socio-economic Inquiry on E-waste Management…

e-Waste management in Nigeria is now been tackled not only by relying on prohibiting illegal imports, but by embracing other management strategies through the processes of generation, collection, handling, recovery, recycling and towards final disposal. In this regard, e-waste is considered with the idea of evaluating consumer's behavioral and its socioeconomic implications [15, 18]. Following the Basel Report on e-waste for 2011, a well-coordinated cluster of e-waste recyclers in some regions across West Africa focused their collection activities mainly on UEEE (or end-of-life EEE) and discarded e-waste. These traders source the items from locally generated and foreign imports which is based on categories of items been savaged [7]. The report showed that those in the recycling sector are engaged in recovering e-waste from waste streams, worked on these items and recovered several types of components and materials. Such recovered components from disassembled devices sometimes sever as sources for repair spare-parts. In another report, Lagos, Nigeria has two main recycling clusters located at Alaba International Market and Ikeja Computer Village employing nearly 15,000 technicians and traders with more than 5000 registered enterprises [10]. These two locations were characterized with high patronage by Nigerians, as well as West and Central Afri-

can nationals in the sales and professional repairs of refurbished EEE.

Furthermore, it is on record that the collection, handling and refurbishing of ewaste in Nigeria take place mainly in the informal sector of recycling by inexperience, low-class, illiterate and undocumented-business individuals. Some of these scavengers, with no prior training and little investment, move around neighborhoods and waste dumps with their handcarts to collect (or in some cases buy) disused e-devices and related metal scraps that contain valuable like aluminum, copper, brass, iron, etc. [7]. These items recovered are then sold directly to cottage recycling businesses (engaged in dismantling to recover valuable components) or to secondary traders that organize large-scale sales to local and foreign recycling firms [10]. The remnant from the dismantled items is often subjected to indiscriminate disposals - including burning (especially plastics coated materials) [8, 16]. Besides, these scavengers are guaranteed of steady access to daily pay, as the proceeds from each day's scouting immediately materialize on sales of the recovered components.

2.2 Pathways for e-waste generation and recycling of the households and

The transboundary movement of UEEE/WEEE in industrialized nations varies from one country to another. In certain instances, private households organize their e-waste disposal by requesting either government service or private service, usually for a price [1]. More often, the scheduled bulky waste pick-up service is managed by private collectors who are often concerned with the afterward segregation of the collected wastes towards recovery and recycling. Whereas, the measures used during "recycling" in Nigeria are comparably considered crude and unstandardized. Recovered components are sometimes sold for export to other places in Africa and Asia [7]. The transboundary movements of e-waste in West Africa countries is found to be driven by a craving for UEEE/WEEE owing to its cheap pricing, quality and durability [7, 8]. The brokers and traders of WEEE have been identified as some of the key players in this trade. This sector ranges from household-arrangement to a

traders

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vessels carrying WEEE destined for Nigeria [9].

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88075

2.1 Bearings of the WEEE value-chain in Nigeria

Many nations are now faced with the task of handling e-waste that are internally generated and those imported from abroad. Findings revealed that many used electrical and electronics equipment (UEEE) shipments into developing nations are combinations of nearly 25% of disused or end-of-life (E.o.L) e-devices and more than 75% of e-waste [9]. On the contrary, e-waste, though a take on problem, could be an important and alternate source for manufacturing materials whenever it is collected, dispersed and reprocessed properly [10–12]. An entirely new business opportunity is developing with the merchandising, recycling and reprocessing of WEEE [12, 13]. Subjective evidences suggest that there are insufficient actions of management functions for WEEE activities in most emerging nations [7, 9, 14]. Modern trends in recycling of WEEE, still fall short of global practice. Hence, the slow and steady upsurge in the volume of WEEE generated thereby strengthening the concern for waste recovering to protecting valuable materials and safeguarding human health and the environment [1, 13].

Nigeria's approach to WEEE management is seen as considering such emerging waste more on a basis of socioeconomic benefits instead of a long-term human health and environmental effects [7]. Reports by several authors including those by the Öko-Institut and Green Advocacy Ghana in 2010 [15] and Osibanjo and Nnorom [4] revealed that this is driven by an approach to catch-up with the "digital divide" through imports of low-priced near E.o.L EEE from industrialized countries. Many E.o.L e-devices are reasonably stockpiled instead of direct disposal with everyday household refuse [16]. Policy regulators and monitors at the local government areas (LGAs), whose mandates covers solid waste management [17], have unsuccessful establish workable management policy for e-waste management [10]. In several industrialized countries with workable policy frameworks for e-waste, there have raised new businesses revolving around tradeoff, reprocessing and repairs of E.o.L EEE [18]. Primarily, this has been linked to the huge volume of precious metals found inside e-waste. The ratio of prized metals to waste in various E.o.L EEE (especially iron, aluminum, copper, gold etc.) is found to supersede its associated pollutants, therefore encouraging recycling in the e-waste sector [19]. Therefore, the study assessed the socioeconomic factors swaying the paths of ewaste generation and control in Southeastern Nigeria with a view to suggesting innovative measures and market potentials for firms in the recycling sector.

#### 2. WEEE streams: The trail to developing nations

The main sources for WEEE inflow into Nigeria is mapped out to include the container market and RoRo market [18]. It is estimated daily that 500 containers of used laptops, computers, televisions and other e-devices are imported into Nigeria Ports [9]. The 2011 Basel Report noted that e-waste comes to Africa predominately from Europe (majorly through the ports of Felixstowe, Amsterdam and Antwerp). The Nigerian counterpart, Belgian Customs estimates that nearly 90% of these prohibited shipments influx Nigeria environment from co-loaded automobiles with E.o.L EEE [7, 18]. On inspection, many of the exports have problematic contents or are in fact mislabeled for ease of shipment of what are in fact illegal goods. In 2008, the inspection of containers by the Nigeria Customs led to the discovery of 127 e-waste containers, from which 47 of them considered hazardous were reversed and

#### Wastes from Industrialized Nations: A Socio-economic Inquiry on E-waste Management… DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.88075

shipped to the origin sources abroad. Up to 2011, the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) had impounded five vessels carrying WEEE destined for Nigeria [9].
