Reducing the cost of wastes from electrical and electronic equipment : a case in four cities of Ethiopia

Abstract: Information communication technology (ICT) has a vital role for development, due to the fast growth of the sector there is high turnover of electrical and electronic products with short period of life time. This dynamics of the sector has higher contributions for the generation of wastes from electrical and electronic products resulted from short life time. The severity of wastes from electrical and electronic equipment insists the countries to create design and apply environmental friendly strategies, policies and choices on it. With the understanding of reducing and managing the rapid growing problem of wfeee to the economy, environment and human health, many developed and developing nations give high priority for the management of wfeee. Ethiopia has the general policies and strategies on the management of solid wastes, but not specifically on wastes from electrical and electronic equipment. In this study, three economic incentive policies which are price-based for wfeee reductions are compared on the basis of the level of incentives and the related outcomes on the eee waste generations and its implementability in the developing nation context like Ethiopia: (i) credit/repayment, (ii) early disposal payment and (iii) reusing/recycling grant. This paper uses the simple partial equilibrium model of electronic waste removal using elasticity from researches and literatures which are done previously. The prices and quantities of computers, televisions, personal mobile phones and refrigerators are based on the 2011 Ethiopian electrical and electronics equipment inventories from four major cities of the country, from Ethiopian import office and primary information. This paper discovers the best from the stated economic incentive policy instruments to minimize wfeee through reductions from the source and increased reusing/recycling amount. The output of this work shows that the reusing/recycling grant economic incentive policy instrument has a better percentage weight in wfeee reduction.