E-waste recycling and public exposure to organic compounds in developing countries: a review of recycling practices and toxicity levels in Ghana

Design and Development of Transient Sensing Devices for Healthcare Applications

With the ever-growing requirements in the healthcare sector aimed at personalized diagnostics and treatment, continuous and real-time monitoring of relevant parameters is gaining significant traction. In many applications, health status monitoring may be carried out by dedicated wearable or implantable sensing devices only within a defined period and followed by sensor removal without additional risks for the patient. At the same time, disposal of the increasing number of conventional portable electronic devices with short life cycles raises serious environmental concerns due to the dangerous accumulation of electronic and chemical waste. An attractive solution to address these complex and contradictory demands is offered by biodegradable sensing devices. Such devices may be able to perform required tests within a programmed period and then disappear by safe resorption in the body or harmless degradation in the environment. This work critically assesses the design and development concepts related to biodegradable and bioresorbable sensors for healthcare applications. Different aspects are comprehensively addressed, from fundamental material properties and sensing principles to application-tailored designs, fabrication techniques, and device implementations. The emerging approaches spanning the last 5 years are emphasized and a broad insight into the most important challenges and future perspectives of biodegradable sensors in healthcare are provided.

Persistent organic pollutants and heavy metals in Ghanaian environment: a systematic review of food safety implications

Advances in industrial and technological innovations have led to significant socio-economic benefits, but with overwhelming negative impacts on the environment. These impacts include the infiltration of organic contaminants into soil, water, and air, posing a threat to the environment and public health. Polybrominated diphenyl ethers (PBDEs), heavy metals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are increasingly released as waste, endangering the environment. In countries like Ghana, where regulations are weakly enforced, industrial waste is released uncontrollably, posing threats to public health, environmental integrity, and food systems. This study systematically evaluated existing literature on PBDEs, heavy metals, PAHs, and organic contaminant exposure in Ghana and proposes a roadmap for achieving food safety and protecting the environment and human health. The research identified high mobility of specific heavy metals and risks associated with PBDEs and PAHs in sediments, dumpsites, and various food items. Unregulated dumping of electronic waste with PBDEs raised environmental concerns. An integrated approach is needed to address the multifaceted impact of organic pollutants on public health and ecosystems. Urgent implementation of effective environmental management strategies and regulatory measures is crucial. The study proposed short- to mid-term priorities emphasising the need to foster collaboration and implementing global measures. The mid- to long-term strategy includes a national information surveillance system, local monitoring capacity development, and integrating land contamination controls with food safety legislation. These measures would mitigate risks, ensure sustainable practices, and improve overall food safety management in Ghana, serving as a model for regions facing similar challenges with diverse pollutants.

Ghana's recently introduced e-waste regulatory policy: A hope for a better e-waste sector?

Electronic waste (e-waste), often dominated by the informal sector, has had adverse effects on recipient developing countries' economies, health and physical environment. Ghana, over the years, has had support from international organisations to manage its e-waste crisis. Until 2016, there was no e-waste specific policy to guide the management of the sector. In 2016, Ghana passed a regulatory policy - Act 917 - to specifically deal with e-waste, supported by other frameworks such as a regulatory instrument (L.I. 2250), a technical guideline for environmentally sound e-waste management and an e-waste-specific policy, which is currently being developed. However, there is dearth of research on how effectively a regulatory policy such as Act 917 can help address an informally dominated sector whose crude recycling approaches have had great environmental and health impacts. Adapting the analytical framework and intervention theory, key stakeholders within the e-waste sector were interviewed on: the effectiveness of the Act, the challenges confronting them and their involvement in the design and implementation processes. The findings showed that stakeholders were represented at various stages of the process. Informal recyclers were provided with training programmes, health centres and an incentive scheme to minimise burning of electrical and electronic equipment. There however exist many challenges to the sound management of the sector, particularly, the lack of end-to-end recycling facilities, registering and formalising the sector and sequencing of the e-waste policy and regulatory framework. The research concludes by recommending areas for future studies.

Informal E-waste recycling practices and environmental pollution in Africa: What is the way forward?

Globally, e-waste is the fastest growing and most valuable waste-stream. While countries worldwide are increasingly acknowledging the e-waste problem and introducing policies and regulations that deal with e-waste, large quantities of e-waste still go undocumented. Much of these global e-wastes are accumulating in open-dumpsites and landfills in African-countries where they are recycled informally resulting in significant environmental and public-health concerns. Although, there is a plethora of studies on e-waste management and disposal, only a few-studies have focused on African-countries who are major recipients of e-waste. Moreover, despite the attempts to mitigate the problem of e-waste in African-countries, e-waste has remained a major-concern and there are currently very limited workable solutions. This study examines informal e-waste recycling, environmental pollution and the extent of environmental and health impacts in major countries of concern including Ghana, Nigeria, Egypt, Kenya and South Africa. The global e-waste Waste Atlas Report, 2020 identified these countries as major recipients of e-waste. To achieve the aims of this research, previous studies from 2005 to 2022 are collected from various databases and analyzed. Accordingly, this study focuses on environmental pollution and public-health impacts resulting from e-waste dumping and informal recycling practices, illegal transboundary shipment of e-waste to the selected countries, and the interventions of governments and international organizations in reducing the impact of e-waste pollution and informal recycling practices in Africa. Based on the outcomes of this study, practical approaches on the way-forward are recommended. The findings of this study contribute to a growing-body of research on informal e-waste recycling practices in Africa to document that individuals working within e-waste sites and residents in nearby communities are exposed to a number of toxic-substances, some at potentially concerning levels.

Stretchable and Biodegradable Batteries with High Energy and Power Density

Realizing a sustainable, technologically advanced future will necessitate solving the electronic waste problem. Biodegradable forms of electronics offer a viable path through their environmental benignity. With both the sheer number of devices produced every day as well as their areas of application ever increasing, new concepts of degradable batteries able to sustain the high power demands of modern electronics must be developed. Simultaneously, integration of electronics in close interaction with its user or powering soft robotic devices necessitates high degrees of compliance, rendering stretchable batteries indispensable. Here, a concept for merging intrinsically stretchable materials with engineered stretchability by kirigami-patterning on a component level is shown to yield high-power biodegradable batteries with reversible elasticity up to 35% when stretched uniaxially and 20% for biaxial extension. Using a combination of molybdenum metal foils, a molybdenum trioxide paste, and magnesium metal foils as electrode materials, a peak power output of 196 µW cm^-2 and an energy density of 1.72 mWh cm^-2 is achieved. The biodegradable batteries are used to power an on-skin biomedical sensor patch, enabling monitoring of sodium concentration in sweat. This concept provides a versatile route for high-power biodegradable batteries, enabling untethered soft electronic devices in a sustainable future.

New Models to Reduce the Health Risks of Informal WEEE Recyclers in MTN Phone Village, Rumukurushi, Port Harcourt, Nigeria

Waste electrical and electronic equipment (WEEE) management in Port Harcourt, an oil-producing city in Nigeria, has become an environmental challenge for the location. WEEE recycling is predominantly managed by informal recyclers, who lack the skills to perform risk-free recycling, hence raising health risks to individuals in associated communities and degrading the environment. Formal recycling, which embraces the best practices for effective WEEE management, is faced with several limitations, such as a lack of detailed guidelines on waste recycling, reuse, and final disposal techniques, with no opportunities for landfilling. A qualitative approach was adopted for this study. Data were gathered via questionnaires and analysed graphically. A background literature review of the assessment of informal recycling methods and associated challenges was performed. Hence, a new concept for the local management of WEEE processing was introduced. This concept limits the role of informal recyclers to WEEE collection. In this case, informal recyclers are paid for WEEE collection; they no longer engage in further WEEE processing. The results show that 48% and 40% agree to partner and collaborate with government agencies, respectively. Conversely, 52% and 40% agree and strongly agree, respectively, to limit their activities to WEEE collection only if the government is willing to pay for the services.

Becoming Sustainable, The New Frontier in Soft Robotics

The advancement of technology has a profound and far-reaching impact on the society, now penetrating all areas of life. From cradle to grave, one is supported by and depends on a wide range of electronic and robotic appliances, with an ever more intimate integration of the digital and biological spheres. These advances, however, often come at the price of negatively impacting our ecosystem, with growing demands on energy, contributions to greenhouse gas emissions and environmental pollution-from production to improper disposal. Mitigating these adverse effects is among the grand challenges of the society and at the forefront of materials research. The currently emerging forms of soft, biologically inspired electronics and robotics have the unique potential of becoming not only like their natural antitypes in performance and capabilities, but also in terms of their ecological footprint. This review outlines the rise of sustainable materials in soft and bioinspired robotics, targeting all robotic components from actuators to energy storage and electronics. The state-of-the-art in biobased robotics spans flourishing fields and applications ranging from microbots operating in vivo to biohybrid machines and fully biodegradable yet resilient actuators. These first steps initiate the evolution of robotics and guide them into a sustainable future.

Revisiting e-waste management practices in selected African countries

African countries are among the prime destinations of electronic waste (e-waste) also called Waste of Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE), and have been challenged with the management of its environmental and health impacts. This paper was carried out to understand the e-waste sector and policy responses in selected African countries. Data for the study were generated from sources; such as policy documents, legislations and literature. Findings show that the import of WEEE is on rising in Africa while landfill and incineration continued to be widely used handling approaches. Countries studied lack WEEE specific national policies and stringent policy instruments to enforce proper collection and recycling systems. Despite the start-ups in emerging recycling operations, a major gap is that informal e-waste actors dominate the e-waste chain from collection to material extraction and refurbish activities through rudimentary tools that cannot detect toxic elements. Tackling the problem demands integrated multi-actor interventions with multiple stakeholders to reduce WEEE inflow on one hand, and ramping up safe recycling capacity on the other hand.

IMPLICATIONS

The article attempts to explain the electronic waste problem in African countries, the nature of existing policy responses and limitations, and ways forward to address policy gaps. Electronic waste is a global problem but with local impacts with the hazardous substances it contains. Because E-waste is still not well recognized health and environment threat, less attention is given for the problem especially in African countries making the uneducated youth more vulnerable to toxic elements. The epistemic community, hence, is supposed to write about it and develop knowledge so that evidences for policy decision making would grow. The focus is on Africa because the problem needs special attention. E-waste has been dumped in Africa for long time and people who work with such waste are mostly uneducated and vulnerable to toxic substances. This problem requires certain attention in the scholarly and policy community at the international level.