Dumping Ground or Country-in-Transition? Discourses of E-Waste in South Africa

Abstract

Electronic waste (e-waste) has become a point of interest for social and technical scientists, activists, and policy-makers. In South Africa, researchers, consultants and industry have worked together to develop plans for modernizing the e-waste industry while, at the same time, a group of activists connected to the global environmental justice movement is concerned with the illegal import of e-waste into South Africa. In this paper, I show how the discourses of ecological modernisation and environmental justice have been mobilized by these two different groups. The discourses have contrasting evaluations of the role of technology, relationship with the state, and the role of political economy which shape interactions between the discourses and discourse coalitions. Despite these differences, productive engagements exist. I suggest that understanding these differences can improve this engagement and contribute to more successful e-waste policy and management in the South African context and more widely.

E-waste challenges in Cape Town: Opportunity for the green economy?

“…Within national policy and media circles, e-waste is portrayed as providing both threats and opportunities. The former is mostly expressed as a source of environmental contamination (Finlay & Liechti, 2008;Lawhon, 2013;Ledwaba & Sosibo, 2017) arising from improper treatment of e-waste where significant quantities of less valuable fractions are routinely discarded (e.g., plastics, glass), and non-negligible amounts of potentially toxic substances (e.g., cadmium, mercury, lead, brominated flame retardants, or polychlorinated biphenyls [PCBs]) pose environmental health risks from inhalation of toxic fumes as well as from accumulations of chemicals in soil, water, and food, particularly in the vicinities of unregulated landfills (Machete, 2017). Despite the national government's attempts to regulate landfills (2013-2016 at a cost of US$2.44 million), the extent of compliance remains unknown and some e-waste is dumped indiscriminately (Godfrey & Oelofse, 2017: 4).…”

“…E-waste research on South Africa is modest compared to the much larger research output in African cities such as Accra, Ghana (Amankwaa, 2013;Grant & Oteng-Ababio, 2013, 2019, Daum et al, 2017 and Lagos, Nigeria (Osibinjo & Nnorom, 2007;Nnorom & Osininjo, 2008;Sullivan, 2014). Research on South Africa focuses on the policy terrain and the transition toward a formal system of e-waste management (Lawhon, 2012(Lawhon, , 2013, on possibilities for developing a green channel (Anahide, 2007), on green economy possibilities for the informal economy (Smit & Musango, 2015a, 2015b, and on the potential for applying technological solutions to valuable e-waste fractions (Ledwaba & Sosibo, 2017). Some case study research has been conducted at industrial sites in Durban (Govender, 2016), Ba-Phalaborwa (Tshimbana, 2014), and Cape Town (Schluep et al, 2008), but there is a dearth of e-waste research on the macroeconomic geography of metropolitan and provincial districts.…”

Polychlorinated dibenzo-p-dioxins, polychlorinated dibenzofurans and polybrominated diphenyl ethers in sediments and fish species from the Murchison Bay of Lake Victoria, Uganda

“…In the recent years, e-waste has emerged as a global environmental problem because of a high frequency of updating electronics to boost the rapid growing technology. The dumping points for e-waste from the developed countries are often in Africa and Asia, in a form of donations and sometimes for recycling due to less stringent environmental regulations in the receiver countries (Frazzoli et al, 2010;Lawhon, 2013;Ongondo et al, 2011).…”

Governing Sustainability: Rio+20 and the Road beyond

“…Certainly, the multiplicity of sustainability-related initiatives, policies, and plans pursued in different urban and rural contexts point to the vibrancy of the local as an arena within which sustainability is pursued (Middlemiss and Parrish, 2010;Seyfang and Haxeltine, 2012). Yet, Lawhon andPatel (2013, page 1059) argue that "the time is long overdue to be more theoretical, more pragmatic, and more ethical" about what local endeavors entail, as they focus on how Local Agenda 21 efforts have served to create a particular framing of sustainability that has limit the range of options for responding to specific environment and development issues. Behind the mantra of 'think globally, act locally', they suggest, is an uncritical acceptance that local institutions can, and should, be the means through which to enact sustainable development.…”

“…There is plenty of evidence to suggest that governments have failed to live up to their international commitments under the aegis of sustainable development (Butchart et al, 2010). Both developed and developing countries have struggled to integrate sustainable development into policy and practice (Adams, 2008;Lawhon, 2013;Russel and Turnpenny, 2009). Likewise, it is clear that the rhetorical commitments of private sector actors towards sustainable development have frequently run ahead of substantive action, resulting in claims of hypocrisy (Frynas, 2008).…”