Information and communication technologies (ICTs) and ... - ITU

such as the EPA and MoC, to the appropriate disposal or recycling processes. A policy to maximise the
economic and environmental benefits of recycling e-waste produced within Ghana would complement the
mining and export of raw materials, which are an important part of Ghana’s economy.
The GSM Association (GSMA) has reported that “In developing countries, the informal repair sector tries to
reuse phone parts as spares and only components that can’t be recycled in this way will become available
for collection. A pilot recycling project was run by Vodafone in Kenya and collected, on average, half a
kilogram of waste per week from each repairer. Nearly a quarter of the waste collected was phone casings,
22 per cent batteries and 20 per cent chargers”.
Box 1: ICT rare metal components recommendation
ITU-T Study Group 5 identified the recycling of ICT rare metal components as an area demanding
attention, and has responded with the new Recommendation ITU-T L.1100 detailing the procedures to
be employed when recycling these metals. The Recommendation outlines key considerations in all
phases of the recycling process, and provides guidelines as to how organizations may fairly and
transparently report on rare metal recycling. Rare metals are essential to the high-end functionality of
ICT products, and the ICT industry has reached the point where it is not possible to omit these metals
from product design. A mobile phone contains no less than 20 rare metals, and to further illustrate the
need to recycle rare metals, consider that a tonne of gold ore yields 5 g of gold, compared to a
staggering 400 g yielded from a tonne of used mobile phones.
It is well known that natural stocks of some semiconductor compounds such as CIGS (copper, indium,
gallium, selenide) or CdTe (cadmium, tellurium) will be entirely depleted in the near future. It is almost
unique to have such strong environmental and economic incentives for recycling.
3. How ICTs can help to reduce GHG emissions in other sectors
This section identifies how the ICT sector can help reduce GHG emissions in other sectors in Ghana through
improvements in energy efficiency and mitigation. Adaptation to climate change and the ICT infrastructure
needed to support this is not addressed, as adaptation is covered extensively in the companion report.
3.1 Improvements in energy efficiency
The use of ICT equipment, networks, and services makes it possible to:
• improve energy efficiency,
• reduce power consumption,
• reduce emissions throughout the whole life cycle of goods, networks, and services,
• use materials sustainably and eliminate hazardous materials,
• use fewer components and materials, including packaging,
• lower impacts with converged, multi-functional goods 100 .
One example of minimising the ‘in use’ emissions is the Ghanaian Government project to replace five
million incandescent lamps with compact fluorescent lamps 101 which use one fifth of the energy to produce
the same illumination. This action would also reduce the peak load on the electricity grid by 124 MW. When
calculating the benefit in terms of GHG emissions, the emission factor of the electricity source needs to be
56