E-waste is hazardous, but often not properly tracked or recycled. What’s needed? A more formalized re-use economy and future-thinking brands.&nbsp;



It seems like everything and anything these days is connected to the internet. From robotic vacuum cleaners to toothbrushes, smart refrigerators, electronic toys and even running shoes, computerized devices embedded with sensors and controllers have become everyday purchases. But as we pursue smarter and sleeker gadgets, we also have to ask how these devices will be discarded.&nbsp;



Thirty-eight tonnes of e-waste is generated every single minute and by 2021, it’s expected that 57 million tonnes of electronic waste will be produced globally (says the Global E-waste Monitor 2020 report). Compared to the overall amount of rubbish generated – 2,000 million tonnes – this number seems relatively small but when you take into account that e-waste has health and environmental implications, and that it’s often not properly tracked or recycled, it becomes a bigger issue.&nbsp;



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“Even a USB is technically e-waste.” – Giulio Airaga, a digital marketing specialist at Desco Electronic Recyclers</blockquote>



“Anything that runs on electricity or anything that generates electricity is electronic waste,” explains Giulio Airaga, a digital marketing specialist at Desco Electronic Recyclers. “Even a USB is technically e-waste. Why? Because inside there’s a circuit board and on it, a concentration of metals… sometimes a little bit of gold, a little bit of silver – it’s traces, so finite, but it&#8217;s something.”&nbsp;



Many African countries do not have formal e-waste solutions in place but because of the Basel Convention (which dictates that hazardous waste cannot be moved between nations), e-waste recycling companies are also not allowed to import discarded electronics. They can, however, accept pre-processed, stripped down e-waste, something Desco Electronic Recyclers does with Namibia, Swaziland, Gabon, Botswana and Mozambique.&nbsp;



“The reason for the Basel Convention is that overseas countries are using Africa as a dumping ground. There are some products, like printers, that we get that there is no solution for and we have to send it to a hazardous landfill at our own cost. Most European countries have recycling centers, and they have e-waste companies, but they want to receive ‘good’ e-waste – the recyclables you can get an income from that don’t fill up the landfills,” says Airaga. “Dumping e-waste is illegal but many people don’t realize that. The highest recovery item is a circuit board and a lot of informal recyclers (and sometimes formalized recyclers) without standards in place, cherry-pick the valuables and dump the rest. A smartphone registered in your name with a serial number on can be traced back to you. This could lead to a fine or even jail time. Recyclers need to take the responsibility on themselves to recycle e-waste properly.”



The unregulated disposal of e-waste is a massive problem globally. At least 9.3-million tonnes of e-waste moves between countries and businesses looking for a cheap and easy way to dispose unusable electronics often turn to countries like Ghana, the Republic of Congo and Ivory Coast. Dell was one of the first technology companies to ban exporting e-waste to developing countries, setting up a recycling hub and collection network in Kenya as well as an industry-wide takeback program in Ghana: “When your name is on the company, you have to take responsibility for the way you impact society. The founder of Dell’s pet hate was that he could potentially walk past a landfill and see his name on the items inside…” explains Chris Buchanan, Dell’s director of end user computing for Africa. “One of the challenges when you build product is the full cycle of the components and making sure that they all can potentially be recycled again.”



<blockquote class="wp-block-quote is-style-large is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow">“One of the challenges when you build product is the full cycle of the components and making sure that they all can potentially be recycled again.” – Chris Buchanan, Dell’s director of end user computing for Africa</blockquote>



Samsung’s e-waste strategy shifted dramatically in 2017 when the South Korean technology giant decided to make e-waste a part of a R25 million ($) enterprise development program: “As part of the president’s Good Green Deeds campaign, we found two entities – alongside the DTI – with the goal of building up their businesses until they own a beneficiation plant… the full value chain of e-waste,” explains Hlubi Shivanda, Samsung South Africa’s director: business innovation group and corporate affairs.&nbsp;



Located in Benoni, Johannesburg, iLanga E-Waste Management is one of the small businesses Samsung is working with: “The company was registered in 2016 and we started operating in 2018 through the help of the funds we received,” explains Maria Rakgalakane, iLanga E-Waste Management’s director. “We managed to pay a warehouse rental deposit, we acquired two trucks, office equipment and then we also acquired the operating licence – it was so expensive. I’ve found that people don’t value recycling. We have to teach them that e-waste can be hazardous. If they want to plant a crop, it won’t grow. It damages the soil.”



Over and above ramping up these small businesses, Samsung’s role is to ensure enough e-waste gets to these companies to recycle. Working closely with the government means access to old devices sitting in state warehouses across the country. “Municipalities and government departments also need to dispose of their waste responsibly. This is an opportunity for these entities to act as a conduit to dispose of this waste. From a government perspective, we’ll be able to unlock the volume,” adds Shivanda.



What’s interesting is that older electronics can be more lucrative as the concentration of precious metals found is often dependent on the age of the device which is why tapping into discarded government electronics could be a goldmine for these upcoming e-waste entrepreneurs. As the life cycle of electronic devices shortens and our requirements for newer, smarter and better gadgets grows, so does the need for e-waste recycling. A more formalized re-use economy is emerging and future-thinking technology brands like Dell are now designing with sustainability in mind.&nbsp;



“We move a lot of devices around the planet on a daily basis. The real challenge in this whole circular economy is actually on our supply chain. Our traditional suppliers are having to change a lot of their manufacturing capabilities… to make sure that we can honor our commitment to the circular economy,” says Buchanan.&nbsp;



<h2 class="has-text-align-center wp-block-heading">‘There is more gold in a tonne of PC motherboards’</h2>



<div class="wp-block-image is-style-default"><figure class="aligncenter size-large is-resized"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="https://www.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1024x768.jpg" alt="" class="wp-image-48668" width="424" height="318" srcset="https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-300x225.jpg 300w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-768x576.jpg 768w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-1536x1152.jpg 1536w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-2048x1536.jpg 2048w, https://cms.forbesafrica.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/10/circuit-board-with-hemisphere-studs-600x450.jpg 600w" sizes="(max-width: 424px) 100vw, 424px" /></figure></div>



Gold is the most valuable component of e-waste. According to the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC) journal, a circuit board can contain around 60 different chemical elements from nickel to palladium and copper: “There is more gold in a tonne of PC motherboards than there is in the digital gold or that they&#8217;re taking out of the ground,” explains Buchanan.&nbsp;



But where do recycled metals and minerals go? For Ashley Heather, a jeweler in Cape Town, sustainable, single-sourced gold and silver recovered from e-waste made perfect sense. “We started off creating jewelry in silver reclaimed from used photographic chemicals but as dark room photography is a bit of a dying art, sourcing these became increasingly difficult,” explains Heather. “We buy end of life electronics from e-waste aggregators but also take donations of people&#8217;s broken personal electronics. This is all manually dismantled, the non-electrical components are sent their separate ways for recycling and the electrical components are shredded. This shredded material heads to the refinery where the precious metals are extracted and purified before heading to the studio to be crafted into jewelry.”



Heather considers herself an advocate for sustainability first and a goldsmith second. She believes ethical sourcing – fairtrade, recycling or repurposing – is the future of jewelry.&nbsp;



“I think global crises also serve as catalysts for re-imagining the way we do many things. Covid-19 has shone the light on the fragility of the fast fashion model.”



&#8211;By Tiana Cline

Lydia Harper Photography

Where Digital Products Do Not End Up In A Wasteland But Find New Life

DJ Kumbula is a brisk, no-nonsense entrepreneur. If you look closely, beyond the sharp suit and sculpted face, you can see traces of tough times that steeled him for risk.
The journey began in the dusty road of Chipinge, a tea planting town near the border with Mozambique, in Zimbabwe’s Eastern Highlands. Here he woke before the cock crowed and worked barefoot in the market.
“We woke up very early, scrubbed the floors and made breakfast before going to school. My mother wasn’t very educated so she started knitting jerseys and my siblings and I were the sales people. She also had a big garden and we grew vegetables on it after school and sold them when ready,” says Kumbula.
At high school, Kumbula graduated from market to salesman.
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“My parents invested the hard earned cash into a grinding mill and small shops and by the time I finished high school I was in a private school funded by my parents. My parents inspired my dreams to have my own business. They had nothing but I saw them work hard to change their lives,” he says.
Kumbula moved to Johannesburg where he met fellow chartered accountant, Zakhe Khuzwayo, while working at Rentworks, an independent rental and asset management company. While there, they saw the demand for equipment thrown away by most companies in the industry.
The pair teamed up to open InnoVent, a rental and asset management company with a twist, in 2003. They squeeze every dollar out of a laptop by renting it over and over before selling it.
“InnoVent rents out equipment to clients, for example, to corporate clients for three years. When those computers are obsolete and can’t be used by those clients who need fast speedy technology, they bring them to us and our other business, Qrent, refurbishes the equipment and re-rent it into a second market to someone who doesn’t need high powered equipment,” says Kumbula.
Then there is a third phase.
“We put in, for example, 40 computers in a lab for a dollar per child per month and it means each child has access to a computer and the computer is maintained for three years. We also offer these computers to teachers and deduct monthly payments for 12 months from their salaries.”
When they opted to start the business, Khuzwayo had just qualified as a chartered accountant.
“When DJ came to me and told me about building a company like this, I jumped at the opportunity. I had no children or any responsibilities. Not once did we ever doubt that this was going to work,” says Khuzwayo.
They swapped their well-paid jobs for the uncertain world of entrepreneurship.
“We felt that there was a gap. We had seen some good and bad things in the company and we decided to build a better model, take what we had learned and add a number of things to create a better model we believed would work better for the clients we targeted,” says Kumbula.
It was easier said than done. For seven months, the pair worked day and night with zero clients on board.
“One of the companies that funded us gave us a desk, two chairs and a phone in a tiny room as our first office. We were convinced the business would work… We knew it was just a matter of time. We had structured our financing to allow us to survive for 12 months without any income and we did,” says Khuzwayo.
Nearly 13 years later, they have swapped the small office for a whole building in Africa’s richest square mile, Sandton in Johannesburg.
Where there is a laptop, there is a hidden dollar.

How To Squeeze A Laptop Dry

It all started from the boot of a car. Luvuyo Rani sold secondhand computers to teachers, whom he realized did not know how to use the technology and this would make his business. It took a few years for this teacher turned entrepreneur’s company, Silulo Ulutho Technologies, to make money and it is now turning over around $1.8 million a year.
In 2004, the South African government was introducing the new outcome based curriculum while Rani was a teacher at Kwamfundo Secondary School in the township of Khayelitsha in the Western Cape province. This curriculum was aimed at teaching learners computer skills that many of the teachers did not have. He quit his teaching job and began selling computers from the back of a little Corsa Lite to schools in the township.
&nbsp;
“Nobody took me seriously when I asked to do presentations and others were saying, ‘You’re not okay, you’re mad, you can’t be selling secondhand computers.’”
But that did not deter him. He soon realized the power of stokvels, an informal savings pool or syndicate, in which money is contributed in lump sums on a rotational basis for family needs. Rani clustered the teachers in groups of six where they contributed $35 every month. Within six months of starting the scheme, each teacher had their own computer.
His brother, Lonwabo, had helped him take out a $900 loan to start the business which was flourishing. The following year, the brothers were selling around 35 computers a month. But soon their customers were returning the computers for repairs and maintenance, which the brothers took to their supplier because they didn’t know how to fix them. Luvuyo had a background in teaching while his brother was trained as an engineer.
“We realized that we needed to have someone and we didn’t have money to pay someone to work for us. So, we decided to get someone to become a partner, in terms of a shareholder, because he had the expertise,” Rani says.
This is when they hired Sigqibo Pangabantu.
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With Pangabantu now fixing the computers, Rani realized that the teachers couldn’t use them. The next step was to establish a computer center where they would train the teachers on how to use the computers, which created another revenue stream. His sister-in-law, Nandipha Mtshoba, joined the team to help in marketing this new venture, while the brothers began looking for space to host this computer centre they wanted. They saw an opportunity where a mall was being built. This was the perfect site, near a main road in the township. But their dream soon came crushing down on them. They were blacklisted and they did not have enough cash to open an internet café.
“They didn’t give us the space. We were disappointed. We met one of the tenants in the mall who was selling electricity and Vodacom phones and he had about 30 square meters of space and we asked this guy if we could use it to open the internet café. He said we must come back in two weeks,” says Rani.
When they returned, the man wanted to charge them $375 to rent the space. It was a steep amount for a business that used the boot of a car as an office. They were deep in debt and even the bank was on the verge of repossessing the car and Luvuyo’s house.
Eventually, their computer supplier saved them and the brothers were able to set up their first business center in February, 2006. Things seemed to be getting on the right track.
“So, the turnover we made that month was R350 ($30) and the expenses were R12,000 ($1,100),” he remembers.
For six months it felt like time stood still. They were receiving threats of eviction and they were behind with payments for suppliers.
They were no longer selling computers to schools because people in the townships didn’t know how to use computers. Rani set up short computer courses on the basics of Microsoft office, the internet and email but they sat in the business center, waiting for customers who were just not coming.
A year later, they won $8,900 in a provisional round of a competition and they opened two business centers. In 2008, they won the national round of the competition and Rani was able to open another three stores. Business started to look up, now selling around 100 computers a month.
Through their enterprise development program, the internet service provider, MWEB, sponsored around $45,000 a year which was used to open seven new business centers.
Today, Silulo Ulutho Technologies boasts 18 centers in the Western Cape and eight in the Eastern Cape province, where Rani was born. He says they are looking to raise funds so their staff can buy franchises.
Another company recently approved a $450,000 loan for Silulo to begin the franchising model and 10 stores will be handed to current employees in the next three years. The staff will own 50% of the business centers until they are able to stand on their own feet, at which point they will be able to buy-out the rest of the franchise from the founders.
“Most of these guys were students of ours and started working as consultants, brand managers and others regional managers. Now they will become owners of these businesses. It’s not only just the four of us becoming the next billionaires, we’re creating other entrepreneurs,” he says.
“We really want to make an impact in the township, in the sense that, people in the rural areas need to have key role models they can learn from [and realize] that it’s possible to start from nothing and build something.”
Silulo wants to be in every township in South Africa and even venturing into the rest of the continent in the next 10 years. Rani says they also want to list on the Johannesburg Stock Exchange by 2024.
He is a man on a mission; taking on challenges in his stride and learning in the industry as he goes along.
“I didn’t get training in IT. I just surrounded myself with my brother who is an engineer and Sigqibo who is in IT. This taught me that you don’t have to be in IT to run a business in IT,” he says.
Rani grew up working in his mother’s shebeen, a drinking hall in townships, where he learned the trade of dealing with customers, selling and managing a business that has helped him run his own business.
He says you need to understand your business’ unique challenges to become a successful entrepreneur.
“We’re trading in Khayelitsha, where the employment rate is 60% and there’s no money. You need to be very smart in terms of how we get money and get people to pay. Some of the people coming for our services are dependent on social grants from government. They save that money for themselves to get a computer and better employment,” he says.
After 10 years of running Silulo, Rani says it’s time to shift his focus to starting a family which he and his wife had put on hold.
“I want to be a daddy now, because this year I’m 40, so it would be a great birthday present,” he says while laughing.
A new venture with new challenges, but Rani has proven that he can be successful in anything he puts his mind to.

Tag: Computers

FORBES AFRICA SOCIAL MEDIA

Where Digital Products Do Not End Up In A Wasteland But Find New Life

How To Squeeze A Laptop Dry

You’re Mad. You Can’t Be Selling Secondhand Computers