November 11, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 29, 1428

NAIROBI: The Nairobi slum where 12-year-old Priscilla grew up abuts one of Africa’s largest dumps. Now her blood is charged with lead, as electronic waste from across the world piles up unchecked.

Dandora is far and away the largest refuse dump in the 4.5-million-strong Kenyan capital, and with 2,000 tons of fresh waste every day, it also holds the dubious distinction of being a member of the “dirty 30” club of the world’s most polluted sites.

According to a 2007 report by the Blacksmith Institute, the festering eyesore on the outskirts of the city is one of the two most polluted sites on the continent, the other being a lead mine in Zambia.

“Every time the dump spews a large cloud of smoke, I start coughing,” says Priscilla, whose Saint John school in Korogocho slum is often shrouded in a cloud of thick noxious fumes.

Her blood lead level is 19.9 microgrammes per decilitre, twice the international norm.

Kenya prides itself on progressive measures to protect the environment, a major asset in its lucrative tourism industry, which attracts millions of visitors each year.

Yet Dandora’s 75 acres (30 hectares) of fuming waste — a sea of plastic bags, used medical supplies, car batteries, dismantled printers and computers — is a blot in the picture that is causing growing concern.

“Electronic waste contains a lot of lead and also mercury and cadmium that cause multiple toxic problems,” said Njoroge Kimani, a biochemist who authored a report commissioned by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

“Children can get lead from inhaling the fumes, from picking objects from the ground, from the dust of the wastes on vegetables,” the Kenyan expert added.

A new trend which sees developed nations dump e-waste — costly to treat or recycle — has been allowed to develop in the vacuum left by the Kenyan authorities, environmental officials warn.

“We already have evidence of Africa generally being used as a dump site for electronic waste with very heavy metals in them,” UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner told reporters recently.

“Right now we see the emergence of e-waste being dumped here in Kenya,” he added.

He said dumping was often carried out under the guise of schemes claiming to donate second-hand computers to Africa. Up to a quarter of the ‘donations’are in fact unusable and are subsequently dumped in the recipient country.

According to UNEP, between 20 to 50 million metric tonnes of e-waste are produced globally each year and much of it finds its way to the African continent as charitable donations.

“Dump sites are poisoners if not handled properly,” Steiner said.

Environmentalists, health officials and NGOs are concerned about the absence of waste management in Kenya, whose developing economy is witnessing an exponential boom in electronic production.

The African country worst affected by e-waste is believed to be Nigeria but Richard Kiaka Dimba, from the Eco-Ethics International, says the problem was spreading.

“We are anticipating that in the near future there will be a crisis” in Kenya, he said.

“These foreign countries are exploiting the weaknesses of environmental instruments in Kenya.”

A study carried out by Dimba earlier this year revealed that 10 to 20 per cent of the computers sent to Kenya each year — mainly from the United States and United Kingdom — are unusable.

Benjamin Langwen, in charge of compliance and enforcement on environmental issues at the state-run National Environment Management Authority, conceded that Kenya had little infrastructure to deal with e-waste.

—AFP