NB: Sorry for a very long posting Kindly lets do our homework. Lets be careful about what we support lest we shoot ourselves in the foot. * Definitions: * Old Computers: Computers that have reached the end of their useful lives in an organisation/ A computer that has reached the end of its useful life to the owner. Second-hand/ Refurbs : Old or used computer equipment that has been restored to working condition. Restoration involves repalcement of hardware components with similar or newer ones. *Facts:* Most of the environmental concerns with computers lie with the monitor (27% of the weight of a CRT monitor is due to its lead content), specifically its cathode ray tube (CRT). Each color monitor contains, on average, four to five pounds of lead, considered hazardous waste when disposed off. Computers also contain other hazardous materials, including mercury, cadmium (a known carcinogen), and hexavalent chromium (shown to cause high blood pressure, iron-poor blood, liver disease, and nerve and brain damage in animals). In the US alone more than 315 million computers were expected to become obsolete by the year 2004, containing an estimated 1.2 billion pounds of lead, 2 million pounds of cadmium, 400,000 pounds of mercury and 1.2 million pounds of hexavalent chromium. Imagine a worst-case scenario: Groundwater, (enough Kenyans draw drinking water directly from rivers,) near a landfill becomes contaminated. If you can contact NEMA or our renowned Mother Nature (Prof. Wangari), let them know these and start preparing a law. *Action:* In US and Europe, laws have been passed to address disposal of electronoc waste: The Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) in US and the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) Directive in Europe address how computer equipment disposal should be carried out. It is important to note that the RCRA rules regarding computer disposal are restricted to landfilling. Disposal usually does not include recycling, donations, or trade-ins. An organization, therefore, comes under the auspices of the RCRA only if it chooses to throw away its old equipment.Failure to comply, attracts high penalties from the authority. *What does it take to comply:* Did you know that implementing an in-house computer disposal program can cost up to $400 per computer in the US? 1. Computer Storage - $360+ Many companies rely simply on storing a few retired computers a month somewhere hoping that they’ll discover a viable solution for reuse or disposal. In so doing, the company is paying a rental fee each and every month on assets that are no longer producing any income. These organizations may also be paying support and maintenance fees, software license fees, or even leasing fees on unused equipment. Storing equipment for up to 3 years results in an average cost of $360 per device; and, when eventual disposal occurs, the organization will spend another $200 — or more — in removal fees. 2. Computer Disposal - $320+ Laws and state regulations prohibit placing the plastics and toxic chemicals found in computers and monitors in landfills. Organizations have to manage the hard costs of safe disposal of computer equipment. Alternatively additional payment to a third party for disposal or recycling of outdated equipment is necessary. When all the costs are totaled, an average of $320 is spent getting each computer out of the door. 3. Cascading (handing down/ employee sales) equipment - $275+ Older equipment replaced by newer equipment, and cascaded down the hierarchy, will require upgrades to remain compatible with newer applications or run the risk of creating an incompatible environment for file formats and networking. Resale to employees means that, first systems must be identified, removed from the enterprise network, cleaned, tested, and priced, and the employees must be notified of the sale. Upon completion of the sale, there must be a reconciliation of equipment information with financial systems, a record of all sale transactions, and review of the accounting — all real, hard costs. The average cost for the two options is approximately $275+. 4. Donating equipment - $300+ Donations of equipment to schools or charities requires all of the same hard costs associated with the administration of a sales effort. But, added to that are the issues of selection of the charity, logistical planning for pick up, disk wiping, maintenance of tax records and licence records. Crucially, in a donation scenario, any residual value of the equipment is lost. Thus, what began as a philanthropic effort, turns out to be one of the most time consuming and costly disposal alternatives; about $300 worth 5. Employing a recycler - $150+ The most cost effective disposal option is using a computer recycler with a strong remarketing organization. While the disposal cost remains the same — about $318 — it is offset by an average wholesale price of approximately $200; resulting in a disposal cost of only $150 per device. California faces a mounting bill for handling toxic waste from obsolete computer monitors that could total U.S. $1 billion by 2006, according to a study released by a coalition of environmental groups. *New industry:* The problem has created a boom for PC recycling businesses in US and Europe (remarketers) that resell or dispose of these systems. They dispose by: *Reuse*. The term “reuse” refers to giving (or selling) computers to someone or some other organization to use. Donating computers to charitable organizations and schools provides a company with tax benefits that may exceed the expected realizable value from selling the computers via a secondary market. *Recycle.* Depending on where it is done, recycling computers can be simple or difficult. Computers contain many metals that can be recycled. In Africa for example it could be extremely difficult to recycle. *Trade-in.* Most major computer manufacturers (e.g., Dell, Gateway, HP/Compaq) have trade-in programs. Individuals who donate their used computer to the manufacturer gets a cash refund. If an old equipment still holds significant value, a remarketer can resell this equipment and share the profits with you. They can also help with employee purchase programs. A remarketer will handle donation of your equipment to a needy charity or developing country, even refurbish your equipment and redeploy it to another site. The remarketers provide these services and more for a fraction of what it would cost to do it yourself. To verify that disposal was done according to the law, the remarketers present a “Certificate of Disposal” providing evidence of services to the companies. *Receiving old computers: * Organisations are advised to have the recipient of the used computer equipment sign an agreement accepting responsibility for its proper disposal. This is necessary whether it is sold, given to an employee, or donated. In the event of future litigation, this documentation supports the position that the recipient has accepted responsibility for the equipment’s disposal. This is where Africa will be trapped. *Africa as an ideal market:* Africa accepting old computers makes it an ideal target for dumping. This can earn the remarketers millions of dollars. The law for example in the US does not cover donated computers abroad but those that are disposed within the country. Safe disposal costs are not incurred since the equipment is leaving the country. But how do the computers get to Africa anyway? Talk to someone bringing old computers: (*These are estimates*) A computer unit comes at a cost of about $50 1. Organize and pay for shipment (costs about $40 ) 2. Arrange and pay for transport from the port to the refurbishment center costs about $10. 3. Unpack the containers: Contain a lot of junk,some containers have even been found to contain materials not related to computer equipment, lack of compatible hardware components, going to a store the components are no longer being supplied, takes enough time to assemble a complete working unit. 4. Assemble one working computer unit ( this usually involves picking bits and pieces from about 8 assumed computer units) 5. Arrange for delivery to schools Since most of the organisations carrying out refurbishment are NGOs and Non-profits, they have donor funded budgets for salaries and operations. This takes care of salaries and wages of technical staff and the rest. Africa is indeed going to save the Europe and North America billions of dollars. Before you know it, another clause will be in WTO agreements requiring that we abind by a certain computer equipment disposal law. We shall of course not have the the infrastructure to safely dispose all the WORLD'S COMPUTER WASTE. THE CRISIS WILL BE HERE WITH US.This will be 10 to 15 years to come. The youth (leaders of tomorrow) will be dealing with this crisis above HIV/AIDS, famine, poverty, wars etc. Heaps and heaps of absolete computer equipment waiting to be safely disposed. Scanty computer hardware industry. We are already quite challanged by our environment. Control over dumping in Kenya for example is a big challenge. Environmental degradation is a rampant. *What happens to the schools:* When schools receive the refurbs, they pay about $250 per unit. They take care of their networking. These costs are either met by the schools directly or through some donor fund. The schools either sign a maintainance contract with the supplier or take care of their problems whenever they occur. Most suppliers indeed supply the computers with pirated software. Free and Open Source Software is also being used. In most African countries, Kenya included, goverments have not made clear policies for ICTs in schools. This means that it is up to the schools to know how best to use the facilities. In most cases, capacity is limited or non-existance. Also, the hidden costs associated with computers start bitting into the schools budgets. Maintance costs go high and soon out of the initial 20 computers, a school has only 10 working units. Teachers have to take up the role of maintainance in order to deliver using the facilities. The teacher's core business is to deliver the curicullum. Maintainance eats into their core business which is teaching. When the end of useful life comes for the refurbs, it will be the responsibilty of the schools to take care of the safe disposal. The NGOs/Non-profits will be gone. When a book is supplied to a school, and after two years the syllabus changes, it becomes the responsibility of the school to know where to take the book if there is limited space in the library. *In Conclusion* If we are going to have 1 million old computers coming to Africa or Kenya, it means that the containers will have to deliver about 1.5 million or more in order assemble the parts that will be missing and to better the specifications. The remarketing/"disposal" industry in the Europe and US will *generate* about: 1,500,000 * 400 (levy for originating company, tax benefits, sale to African refurbishment centers) = $600,000,000 Africa will *loose* (worth of local computer hardware industry): 1,500,000 * 100 (purchase of old computer, shipping, delivery from port) = $150,000,000 NB: Computers have not been refurbished and are yet to go to schools, utilization has not started, full capacity to use is not even guaranteed KINDLY NOTE THAT THIS WILL OPEN UP KENYA and AFRICA FOR ALL THE OLD COMPUTERS, INDEED IT WILL KICKSTART THE OFFLOADING OF OLD COMPUTERS TO AFRICA *What i would like to bring out is this:* Donors fund these projects. Donor funds, in most cases amount to goverment loans payable over a long time. Therefore Kenya and Africa will be loaned the money to acquire old computers and pay for what it takes to deliver the computers to schools. If then the donors goodwill is to support positive development in Africa and economic growth why invest in a process that is going to eventually destroy the continent? If an investment fund of $150 million was granted to Dell/HP or even a Chinese company (these being examples) in a public-private partnership to invest in Africa, i believe they would willing come since the computers will be sold at a cost with returns. This would spur and develop the industry, create jobs, get new computers and all that comes with a new industry. 10 years down the line, we could be speaking a different language. Glad about something; having earned mileage in this effort to close the so called "digital divide". Indeed many companies are already assembling new computers (clones) in Kenya and this kind of approach will grow and enhance Kenyan businesses hence sustainable development. However, with the old computers, 10 years down the line, we will be weeping at the overwhelming heaps and heaps of e-waste, that we borrowed money to acquire, are paying back with interest. Further, concerning disposal of the waste, the developed countries will be telling us they have technology to safely dispose e-waste, but at our cost. At this point we shall go back to the same donors and ask for money to get all these waste out of our countries with a lot of environmental degradation already done. And the African debts will continue to grow, with or without debt relief. How shall Kenya and Africa ever exit this vicious cycle? This is what i would like to trigger in the minds of everyone listening. As Kenyans we have the responsibility to define our destiny which is wholesome for all our people. Lets take a leaf from the west, who always plan with the future generations in mind. AT THIS POINT, I WOULD REQUEST YOU WHO HAS READ THROUGH UP TO THIS POINT AND UNDERSTANDS THE PERTINENT ISSUES THAT I HAVE RAISED TO TALK TO THOSE AROUND YOU AND GET THEM TO UNDERSTAND THE ISSUES AT STAKE. SPREAD THIS MESSAGE TO AS MANY PEOPLE AS YOU CAN FOR THE SAKE OF THIS CONTINENT. THOSE IN POSITIONS OF INFLUENCE, I PRAY THAT YOU INTERVENE. I HAVE NOTHING AGAINST OTHERS BUT AFRICA HAS TO TAKE CONTROL OF HER DESTINY AND MORE SO THE ONE THAT PLACES HER PEOPLE FIRST. KENYANS, LETS SAVE OUR COUNTRY'S FUTURE AND GERMINATE A HARDWARE INDUSTRY! TO ALEX: Please consider retracting your call! Dorcas Muthoni Sent In my individual capacity Alex Gakuru wrote:
I ask of Americans currently using the 63 million computers to 'dump' all of them in Kenya and pay a small dumping fee per computer. Reasoning: 1. They are using them today so why cant we use them for the next 5 years ( 2010 MDGs?) 2. The newspaper does not offer an alternative beyong the 'dumping' health scare 3. In Kenya 10,000 pcs are purchased every month in a population of 31 million. When shall Kenya have 15 million people connected to the internet? 4.What about those old 386s stilll in circulation? should be dump into the sea?
Americans, please dump all the computers in Kenya. The little dumping fee shall be used for Universal Access Fund to transport them to Mandera, Loki, Kajiado, Bondo, Nanyuki, Nandi, Turkana...... the rural folks need internet not just the economic gems in Nairobi and Mombasa. Many Kenyans long ago made child's play out of Schroedingers' equation and their intelligence should not be under-estimated. They are innovative enough to develop solar, wind power. Technology Should NOT be a preserve of a handful of city-based CEOs. Gakuru