By 2030, South Africa will generate an estimated 750,000 tonnes of electronic waste (e-waste) each year, a staggering figure for a country still struggling to divert even a fraction of its refuse from landfill.

Despite a national ban on the disposal of e-waste, between 90 and 95% of the material never reaches recycling facilities. Instead, obsolete electronics are stockpiled, or dumped, trapped in the grey zone between ownership and disposal.

This disconnect between policy and practice is the focus of a conference paper by Mark Williams-Wynn and Marcin Durski of EWaste Africa. Their work highlights a sobering truth: South Africa’s challenge is no longer technical feasibility; it is about accessibility, motivation, and behaviour. Even with the right laws in place, e-waste continues to slip through the cracks because recycling remains inconvenient, undervalued, and misunderstood.

The invisible hazard in our homes

Unlike typical household waste, e-waste hides in plain sight. Drawers full of retired smartphones, offices stacked with obsolete computers, and storerooms filled with broken printers all represent a latent environmental risk. Many of these devices contain lithium-ion batteries, which degrade over time and can ignite spontaneously or release toxic gases. Yet the public rarely perceives these hazards, and so the stockpiles grow.

Globally, e-waste is now the fastest-growing waste stream, driven by shorter product lifecycles and rising consumer demand for connected devices. In 2022, South Africa ranked among Africa’s top three generators, producing around 527,000 tonnes, and projections suggest this will rise by half by 2030.

While the country’s National Environmental Management: Waste Act (2008) and Norms for Landfill Disposal (2013) explicitly prohibit e-waste from being sent to landfill, enforcement remains weak. The reality is that regulations have outpaced implementation, and citizens, businesses, and even some municipalities are still unsure how or where to dispose of electronic items safely.

Why good policy has not changed bad habits

E-waste is unique among waste streams because it straddles the line between resource and liability. Many consumers cling to outdated electronics because they appear valuable, even when they no longer function. For wealthier households, old devices are often passed down rather than discarded as a gesture of goodwill that, unintentionally, transfers environmental risk to poorer communities lacking access to recycling infrastructure.

In peri-urban and informal settlements, discarded electronics are frequently mixed with general waste or burned for metal recovery. The informal recycling sector plays a vital role in resource recovery but often under unsafe conditions. Some reclaimers go as far as to dismantle circuit boards by hand, burn wires in open air, and use acid baths to extract metals, releasing toxins into soil and water.

The study identifies four interlinked barriers to effective diversion:

1. Inadequate infrastructure, patchy recycling networks, and limited drop-off sites.
2. Weak enforcement and fragmented policy.
3. Behavioural and socio-economic barriers, from apathy to misperceived value.
4. Low public awareness about recycling options and environmental risks.

Each barrier reinforces the others. A lack of infrastructure discourages participation; poor data undermines policy design; and limited awareness prevents demand for better systems.

Recycling must be as easy as throwing away

Williams-Wynn and Durski argue that the key to transforming e-waste management lies in accessibility.

“We must make e-waste drop-off as convenient and routine as buying bread or petrol,” they argue. This insight is grounded in behavioural research showing that convenience is the single biggest predictor of recycling participation.

To that end, collection infrastructure must evolve from sporadic pilot projects to permanent, visible, and user-friendly systems.

Examples include:

• Public drop-off points at libraries, police stations, or shopping centres.
• Community collection hubs in townhouse complexes or gated estates.
• Mobile collection days for rural or peri-urban areas, paired with awareness campaigns.

Each intervention reduces the friction of the small inconveniences that deter people from acting sustainably. However, infrastructure alone is not enough. Without trust, information, and incentives, even the best-designed systems will fail to achieve scale.

Integrating the informal economy

South Africa’s informal reclaimers are already embedded in the recycling ecosystem. Rather than excluding them, reformers argue for structured integration providing safety training, fair pricing, and formal market access.

Currently, reclaimers often sell e-waste to unscrupulous scrap dealers who pay cash with no environmental oversight. Formal recyclers, by contrast, offer lower payouts but higher compliance standards. Bridging this gap requires innovative incentives, supported by Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) funds or municipal partnerships, that reward environmentally sound recovery without penalising informal livelihoods.

Such integration can transform e-waste collection from a survival activity into a green micro-enterprise sector, aligning environmental outcomes with economic inclusion.

Policy coherence and producer accountability

Legislation already provides scaffolding for reform. The Extended Producer Responsibility Regulations (2021) require manufacturers and importers to take responsibility for the full lifecycle of their products. Yet enforcement remains uneven, with “free riders” continuing to operate outside compliance systems.

To close these gaps, Williams-Wynn and Durski highlight several proposals that have been made in the available literature, including:

• Stronger alignment between the National Waste Management Strategy (NWMS 2020) and municipal delivery plans.
• EPR enforcement through transparent registration and traceability, including labelling requirements for second-hand and refurbished devices.
• Cross-agency collaboration between the DFFE, SARS, customs, and law enforcement to curb illegal imports and unregistered producers.

Such coordination ensures that the financial responsibility for waste management is borne by those who profit from production, not by under-resourced municipalities or consumers.

Behavioural insight, recycling is personal

Legislation and infrastructure can only go so far. The final frontier is human behaviour. Research across South Africa shows that many households fail to recycle not because they reject the idea, but because they lack information, motivation, or feedback.

The paper highlights five behavioural interventions to close this gap:

1. Promote civic responsibility, frame e-waste disposal as a moral obligation.
2. Offer small, tangible incentives, from mobile data to product rebates.
3. Recast informal collectors as community recyclers, not nuisances.
4. Challenge fatalism, counter the “my effort doesn’t matter” mindset.
5. Celebrate success, publish feedback on diversion rates to build shared pride.

Psychology matters. When people see that their actions produce visible results, they are more likely to repeat them. This positive feedback loop is essential to turning one-time participation into habitual recycling.

Education and visibility, the missing links

Many South Africans simply do not know where or how to recycle electronics. Awareness campaigns, if they exist, are often short-lived or poorly targeted. A sustainable communication strategy should:

• Provide clear, consistent information on what can be recycled and where.
• Use multiple languages and visual cues to reach diverse audiences.
• Leverage schools as long-term incubators of environmental responsibility.

As Williams-Wynn notes, “Education is not a side issue, it’s the infrastructure that underpins participation.” Continuous engagement, not sporadic messaging, is what builds durable habits and shifts community norms.

From stockpiles to circularity

Ultimately, South Africa’s e-waste problem is not one of ignorance, but of inertia. The system requires practical pathways that translate regulation into action, pathways that connect the citizen at home to the recycler at the end of the chain.

The way forward is clear:

• Build accessible infrastructure, everywhere, not just in affluent areas.
• Integrate the informal sector, safely and sustainably.
• Enforce EPR compliance, closing loopholes that reward inaction.
• Embed behavioural and educational strategies that make recycling a social norm.

If done well, e-waste diversion could become a flagship of South Africa’s circular economy transition, creating jobs, protecting public health, and recovering valuable materials from the waste stream.

Because when technology evolves faster than waste systems, the result is chaos. But when design, policy, and behaviour align, even the smallest device can be part of something regenerative.

Adapted from an article by Dr Mark Williams-Wynn and Dr Marcin Hubert Durski, EWaste Africa