Turning Waste Into Money

Yaya Boudani

17 June 2011

Ouagadougou — In Burkina Faso, a recycling workshop is taking used computers apart and ships the bits and pieces to a partner in France, who sends refurbished computers to Burkina Faso in return. Other parts stay in the country to start a second life in… artworks!

Owning a computer or a cell phone remains a luxury for most Burkinese. To fashionable and be part of technological civilisation, as some put it here, people turn to appliances known as ‘France au revoir’ (goodbye France).

These are second-hand computers, phones, fridges and television sets imported from Europe.

Often short-lived, these appliances are dumped a few months later in garbage cans or sewers. “I throw them in the garbage. I don’t know if they are dangerous or not. They are no longer useful to me, so I throw them away”, says Fulbert, a repairer, happily.

Toxic and dangerous materials

To help prevent repairers and users of electronic materials from throwing them away or burning them after use, Alassane Sanou, who runs a recycling workshop in Ouagadougou, organises sensitisation sessions. The goal is to explain the dangers of these appliances.

“The battery of a cell phone might be small, but it is toxic and can contaminate about 600 litres of water. The Burkina Faso water and sanitation agency cannot treat this polluted water. Cathode tubes from computers contain a substance that causes irreversible brain swelling when ingested”, Sanou warns.

Partnership with the French

Recycling electrical and electronic waste requires experts. Sanou and his men collect, process and condition electrical and electronic materials. “Computers are broken down into different pieces: screens, plastic and electronic components are separated and kept in specific containers. Everything is sent to Europe, except the iron, aluminium and copper parts”, he says.

“We’ve noticed that Burkinese people did not have access to computers. So we’ve set up a partnership with recycling workshops in France, who send us refurbished computers. Those computers are made available for the most deprived. In return we send them used computers”, he adds.

Arts and crafts

Some of the processed materials are sold to local craftsmen for the fabrication of art objects. The craftsmen use aluminium, iron, copper and bronze. “When there is ample supply of raw materials, I can melt up to 500 kilograms of used wires every month. The price of a kilogram of wires is usually 2000 CFA. Nowadays, they are scarce, because suppliers prefer selling them to international buyers at 3500 CFA per kilogram”, laments Karim Dermé, a craftsman.

In order to help these local craftsmen, the Ouagadougou recycling workshop supplies them with the copper and aluminium collected from computers at 1500 CFA francs per kilogram.

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