Socio-economic assessment and feasibility study on - Öko-Institut eV

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August 2010
<strong>Socio</strong>-<strong>economic</strong> <strong>assessment</strong> <strong>and</strong> <strong>feasibility</strong> <strong>study</strong>
on sustainable e-waste management in Ghana
� health risks from hazardous substances contained in the devices;
� safety risks from h<strong>and</strong>ling heavy devices;
� safety risks from the operation of recycling machinery.
Hazardous substances are present in mercury switches of old box-type freezers, in PCBcontaining
capacitors as well as in the ammonia <strong>and</strong> chrome-VI contained in the cooling
circuits of absorption refrigerators. The CFCs <strong>and</strong> HFCs contained in foams <strong>and</strong> cooling
circuits are not directly hazardous to human health. Therefore, leakages <strong>and</strong> spills of these
substances are undesirable from an environmental perspective, but do not affect workplace
health <strong>and</strong> safety.
Although the components containing pollutants can be easily identified by trained workers,
the substances of concern are all present in a liquid form so that proper management
guidelines <strong>and</strong> h<strong>and</strong>ling procedures must be in place. Furthermore, workers have to be
trained how to recognise <strong>and</strong> treat the relevant components.
Additionally, risks associated with h<strong>and</strong>ling <strong>and</strong> lifting of heavy devices with partly more than
40kg have to be taken into account.
In terms of safety risks from the operation of recycling machinery, special emphasis on fire
risks is needed: As non-CFC <strong>and</strong> non-HFC refrigerators contain flammable hydrocarbons, a
co-processing with CFC <strong>and</strong> HFC refrigerators leads to an accumulation of flammable gases
within the recovery machinery of recycling step 1 <strong>and</strong> 2 40 . Especially during CFC-recovery
step 2, these hydrocarbons can cause fires or explosions within the recovery unit. Therefore,
sophisticated precaution measures have to be installed. Amongst others, automated CFCrecovery
units must be operated in a nitrogen atmosphere.
Operation of one unit of the step 1 CFC-recovery process requires about six workers <strong>and</strong>
one engineer. With this workforce, roughly 30 devices can be treated per hour <strong>and</strong> 60,000
per year. The automated step 2 CFC-recovery operation requires one or two additional engineers
to achieve the same treatment capacity. Additional manual labour can be deployed to
further dismantle <strong>and</strong> sort some of the recycling outputs such as the evacuated compressors.
4.3.7 Interim conclusion <strong>and</strong> possible business models
The comparison of the presently applied recycling technologies <strong>and</strong> the best applicable
technologies reveals that there are significant untapped environmental <strong>and</strong> possibly <strong>economic</strong>
improvement potentials. These potentials can be realised by the recovery of CFCs
<strong>and</strong> HFCs from cooling circuits <strong>and</strong> foams <strong>and</strong> the destruction of these Ozone Depleting
Substances in dedicated facilities. Additionally, the sound management of hazardous components
<strong>and</strong> a better utilisation of the plastic fraction add to the benefits of sound refrigerator
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The co-processing of hydrocarbon devices is to some extent unavoidable, as some devices are insufficiently
marked or may have lost their marks during their life-time.