When Mbanabo Mushumba Eric splits to pieces broken televisions and expired computers in a jam-packed repair hub in Kigali, he works with bare hands and no protective gear. To extract copper, he burns cables in the open air, inhaling thick smoke that irritates his eyes and chest. His experience exposes the critical gaps between Rwanda’s growing e-waste control framework and the reality on the ground, where second-hand electronics still end their life as dangerous waste in informal spaces.
“Sometimes I feel dizzy, but this is how I earn a living,” he says.

By Scovian Lillian

Nairobi, Kenya: In many villages, hazardous waste poses a silent threat, spreading through water after heavy rains, rising from contaminated soil during hot afternoons, or drifting through the air as smoke from burning trash.

Benjamin Karanja sits behind a glass counter stacked with refurbished smartphones and laptops in a small electronics shop on Kimathi Street in Nairobi. His business imports close to 2,000 second hand devices each month, mostly from the United Kingdom. For many customers, the business is a lifeline and a gateway to digital inclusion. The shop serves groups such as university students seeking affordable laptops and boda boda riders replacing cracked phones. Many of these buyers would otherwise be priced out of new electronics.

As off-grid solar transforms energy access in Malawi, a hidden crisis is unfolding. The uncontrolled recycling of lead-acid batteries is contaminating neighbourhoods, damaging children’s brains, and exposing deep failures in environmental governance.
By Collins Mtika
On clear mornings in Lilongwe’s Mtsiliza ward, the air smells of burning plastic and hot metal. At Mtsiliza Primary School, pupils line up for assembly as black smoke drifts over the perimeter wall.
Less than 100 metres from the classrooms, an unlicensed lead smelter operates around the clock.

Source: https://issafrica.org/iss-today/despite-the-hazards-ghanas-illicit-wast…

Each year, an estimated 150,000 tonnes of electronic waste are shipped to Ghana, both legally and illegally. Much of it arrives labelled as “second-hand goods” or “recyclables”, but in reality large volumes are beyond repair and end up in informal dumps and burning sites.
ISS Africa