Environmental
Electrical and electronic waste is a category of waste posing a double problem: rapid growth, as well as significant management constraints in view of certain toxic components that constitute it. Significant ecological and health issues are indeed associated with it: substances harmful to the ozone layer, heavy metals (lead, mercury), persistent organic pollutants, greenhouse gases.
Developing countries are particularly exposed to the problem of WEEE: their rapid economic and demographic growth, as well as the social and cultural changes brought about by development, lead to a sharp increase in the flow of waste. At the same time, these countries do not have the infrastructures, technologies and collection systems that would allow them to capture this flow and process it properly.
In Cameroon, however, the government – through the Ministry of the Environment, Nature Protection and Sustainable Development – has been proactive, with specific regulations put in place in 2012. This is also the year- where the associations Solidarité Technologique and La Guilde started the pilot initiative WEEECAM in the processing of IT WEEE in Yaoundé, of which the present project constitutes both a continuity and a substantial development and whose success could serve as an example to follow in Africa and most developing countries.
