Abstract
This article explores the compatibility of Ghana’s e-waste policy (Act 917) in the
country’s socioeconomic context. Our article starts with two main questions based
on our empirical engagements with the act which, contextually, mimics the extended
producer responsibility. First, we question the pessimistic imaginaries about the
e-waste industry that seeks its outright trade ban or promotes a single version of
recycling. Second, we query if the underlying assumptions and basic mechanisms of
extended producer responsibility can create the enabling environment to actualize
sound e-waste management. Based on prevailing context, the imaginaries appear
socially peripheral, isolated, and powerless, and we call for a broader, unbiased,
in-depth, critical systems thinking for understanding the complexities and
multidimensional nature of the waste electrical and electronic equipment industry.
We suggest that it is by fostering the positive synergies across sectors and among
policies that environmentally sound e-waste policy outcomes can be achievable.
Journal of Environment & Development 0(0) 1–23, ISSN 1070-4965, Sage Publications.
Read more: https://doi.org/10.1177/1070496519898218