Nigeria faces heightened e-waste in 2008

Just seven years ago, there were only about 500,000 telephone lines in the country. Today there are over forty million. Figures released by the Nigerian Communications Commission recently put the number of active mobile phone subscribers at 37.9 million and fixed wireless line users at 1.4 million.

Also, industry estimates for the number of personal computers bought in the formal market stands at 250,000 per annum. Industry experts estimate that for every PC bought in the formal market, about 15 are bought in the informal market. This means that about 3.75 million computers are bought on the informal market. Added to the .25 million bought in the formal market, the total figure bought per year comes to about four million computers.

These appliances contain toxic components

Some toxic materials which can be found in cell phone batteries and PC monitor screens, among other electronic components, are cadmium, lead and mercury, which are classified as heavy metals.

The American Medical Association (AMA) reports that "just one-seventieth of a teaspoon of mercury, can contaminate 20 acres of lake, making the fish unfit to eat."

The AMA report adds that:" Without adequate protection, workers dismantling discarded electronic equipment are exposed to many chemical compounds with known and suspected negative health effects."

The dismantling of such components is commonplace in refuse dumps in Lagos and some other Nigerian cities as well as in the computers and peripherals market- the Computer Village in Ikeja Lagos.

The majority of the computers sold in the informal market are secondhand ones which come in with much shorter life spans or as scrap. The majority of the computers sold in the informal market are secondhand ones which come in with much shorter life spans, or as outright scrap.

The American Medical Association in its resolution 423, on computers and electronic waste, recommends ;"That our American Medical Association encourage its members and US health institutions to adopt purchasing or leasing contracts only with electronics manufacturers and distributors, who are committed to safely handling the products at the end of life, meaning that they reuse and recycle to the greatest extent possible, do not export hazardous electronic waste to developing countries and safely dispose of waste that cannot be reused or recycled."