Rwanda's Sole E-Waste Recycling Facility to Undergo Huge Expansion

SEATTLE (Scrap Monster): EnviroServe Rwanda- the company that manages Rwanda’s only e-waste recycling facility announced plans of big expansion. This follows the e-waste collection figures, recently published by the government authorities, which indicates poor collection as compared with the huge quantity of e-waste generated by the country every year.

According to latest data, the e-waste recycling plant has collected only 700 tonnes of e-waste as at the end of October this year, out of which nearly 434 tonnes were recycled. The rest were refurbished and supplied to the needy at low cost. The collection and recycling figures suggest that the plant operates well below its maximum capacity of nearly 7,000 tonnes of e-waste per annum. It must be noted that the country is estimated to generate around 10,000 tonnes of e-waste every year.

The Government of Rwanda had leased out the facility to Enviroserve Rwanda Green Park, a subsidiary of Dubai, UAE-based Enviroserve Services LLC for a period of ten years. Though the company had plans to set up 30 collection centres during the first year of operation, it could only manage to open three collection centres. This resulted in drastic drop in collection volumes, the company said.

In order to handle more capacity, the company plans to increase the number of collection points for discarded electronic waste. The Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA) has invited private investments to boost infrastructure facilities in the country to deal with e-waste.