Toxic colonialism has become a persistent trend in Africa. West Africa has been recorded as the top destination for toxic waste with special mention to the Gulf of Guinea. Life taking and health threatening cases of toxic waste dumping have been recorded in the region. The right to good health and well-being under the UN Sustainable Development Goals and a clean and safe environment under the Constitution of almost every government in the world, is being breached, and this is mainly being done by economic giants in Europe, Asia and the United States of America. Knowingly, to avoid high costs of waste treatment and disposal in their countries, the above-mentioned states are falsely transporting waste material under the banner of reusable material to Africa. In some instances, waste is openly being transported as waste, but it is being said to be non-toxic waste when the opposite is true. Lives have been lost, health complications have been experienced and this trend continues as some African countries have not yet ratified to the internationally set treaties that control and ban the transboundary movement of hazardous waste such as the Basel and Bamako Conventions.
Toxic waste is unwanted or used up material that is capable of posing harm to the environment and life on earth. The waste emanates from industrial, mining, farming and manufacturing processes as well as health institutions. Toxic waste can also be termed hazardous waste and comes in different forms, that is solid, oils, liquid, gas and sludge form. Depending on the main constituents of the waste, toxic waste presents different characteristics and effects and therefore impacts the environments, plants, animals and humans differently. The waste can be rich in toxic chemicals such as mercury, radioactive active material such as uranium, persistent organic compounds such as dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT), endocrine disrupting compounds such as lead. The upgrades in technology are also contributing to the generation of large amounts of toxic waste especially in the form of redundant electronic waste, e-waste. According to a report made by Inger Andersen in February 2020, close to 180 million tons of both hazardous and household waste are generated every year globally. Of this 9.3 million tons of hazardous waste experiences transboundary movement. Mostly from the Western countries and China to Africa for disposal. This normally occurs in cases where the treatment is too polluting for the developed countries, too expensive or less profitable. In Africa however, the global poor are thriving day and night to get out of poverty and every dollar counts no matter how little it is. Therefore, offers are accepted to let African grounds be waste dumps for such waste as long as a fee is paid. It does not matter how little it is. Waste that costs US$620 000 to treat and dispose in the Netherlands costed US$22 000 in Cote d’Ivore. The balance was paid through lost lives and crippled health of thousands of Ivorian citizens.
Africa is a victim of continued illegal trade of toxic materials and waste and this is attributed to a number of causes, most of which are economic. It is a public secret that Africa has some of the most impoverished countries who are in debt and are trying to keep their economies afloat for the betterment of their citizens. This makes it vulnerable to exploitation by developed nations who prey on the weak. The cost of treatment and disposal of waste in developed countries is higher compared to that charged by the desperate African countries. Generation of funds from levies collected from importers benefits the African countries. Ghana for example generates and benefits from close to US$100 000 million from the levies collected from importers of electronic waste every year. There are more rigorous environmental laws and standards in developed countries which make it difficult for toxic waste to be carelessly disposed of in Europe, China and the United States of America unlike in African states where environmental management is still a growing field and corruption is taking over. Advocations such as ‘Not In My Back Yard’ have also taken a lead role in ensuring the management of hazardous waste does not bring harm to the citizens of developed countries. The industrial giants seeking to dispose of their toxic waste then turn to Africa where the ‘door is always open’. In some instances, the transportation of toxic waste has been done under the façade of importation of goods for reuse and recycling, where only 25% will be workable material and the rest, garbage.
Topical cases of illegal toxic waste disposal that have been recorded in Africa are mainly in the Gulf of Guinea. Countries mainly affected are Nigeria, Ghana and Cote d’Ivore. Approximately 500 containers of electronic waste are transported to Nigeria on a monthly basis. In 1988, 2000 drums of Italian hazardous waste were transported to a small town in Nigeria called Koko under the guise that it was fertilizer. A monthly rental of US$100 was being paid to a Nigerian citizen to keep these drums on his farm. When the waste leaked chemical incidents were experienced which lead to environmental damage, health loss and loss of human life. In 2006, a Trafigura case was recorded. The effects of this event are still being felt. A Netherlands multinational oil company saw it expensive to pay US$62 000 to treat and dispose its toxic waste. After approaching an Ivorian citizen, a US$22 000 deal was settled under the conditions that the waste would be disposed of in Abidjan, Cote d’Ivore. 17 people died and tens of thousands were poisoned. The effects of this incident were persistent to the extent that a call for Trafigura to disclose the contents of the waste disposed of in Abidjan was made by UN Human Rights experts in 2016.
A convention was introduced to realize a total ban in the importation of hazardous waste called the Bamako Convention. The Convention was negotiated by countries in the Organization of African Unity in Mali and came into force in 1998. The Bamako Convention was born following failures realized by the Basel Convention. The Basel Convention reduces and controls the transboundary movements of hazardous waste whilst the Bamako seeks to completely ban any kind of transboundary movement of any form of toxic waste. The unfortunate scenario however is that the main culprits or rather victims of illegal toxic waste dumping which are countries in the Gulf of Guinea with special mention to Nigeria and Ghana, are not ratified to the Bamako Convention and therefore illegal trade of toxic waste continues in West Africa.
