In today’s world you are highly welcome to change your personal computer, cell phone, refrigerator, or for that matter any electronic or electrical gadget, but be careful while disposing of the old one. Disposing it into the dustbin is not the suitable discarding of electronic equipment, which has attained obsolescence as per your judgment. It may end up adding to e-waste, which creates problems for the ecology in general and directly or indirectly for the living beings around through water, soil and air pollution. The people’s republic of China is the largest producer of e-waste in the world followed by India and Nigeria second and third respectively. The recent policy changes in Nigeria have led to an influx of electrical and electronic equipment’s in particular hardware. It has no doubt helped the Nigerian economy to grow faster and fueled increase consumption rate of electronic products. Along with economic growth and availability of electronics goods in the market has increased temptation of consumers to replace their household electronics items with newer models for various reasons. The net effect is a higher rate of obsolescence, which is leading to growing piles of e-waste.

The e-waste concern and challenges in Nigeria involves, lack of accurate figures on the rapidly increasing volumes, generated domestically and by imports. Low-level awareness among manufactures and customers of hazards, and inefficient e-waste disposal techniques and no accurate estimates or statistics of the quantity of e-waste generated and recycled available that negatively affect the environment. The term e-waste is generally used to refer to electrical or electronic items, which have discarded by their users, whether they are reusable, repairable, recyclable or destined for disposal in dump or landfills sites. E-waste is also often referred to as WEE (Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment) the terms are inter changeable. Therefore the characteristics of e-waste mean that its management involves unique challenges and opportunities, which are not generally involved in other areas of recycling and waste management. The scale of challenges in managing e-waste is enormous and requires systematic approach. Globally e-waste is the fastest growing waste stream in both the developed and developing countries.

Disappointingly most of the e-waste from developed world especially Europe and America ends up in Nigeria and other developing countries in Africa. Unfortunately e-waste in Nigeria is unregulated, however this can serve as an avenue to allow implementation strategies and enforcement practices for the management of e-waste and through these processes jobs and wealth are created. Like any other hazardous waste, the problems of e-waste has become short and long-term concern as its unregulated accumulation and recycling can contribute to serious environmental challenges. Several risk are involved in e-waste management but the main risks is the contamination to human and environments arises from: Substances such as lead and mercury, contained within the e-waste products. Toxic emissions (e.g. dioxins) generated from improper processing or treatments and the use of hazardous agents in informal recycling, such as cyanide for leaching purposes. High-level e-waste management is a global challenge in both developed and developing country. The urgent need for the development and enforcement of e-waste management legislation and regulations coupled with an effective enlightenment and awareness campaigns. A co-operative and compliance of producers most be achieved to form a synergy in the production cycle (cradle to grave).

It is also necessary to establish an efficient and effective e-waste management system, which includes systematic collection, sorting, transportation and processing. A key essential aspect in e-waste management is technological developments in both developed and developing countries that can enhance e-waste processing techniques. The governments both federal and state levels have to develop capacity for reuse and recycling of electronic products with added incentive to encourage active participation of stakeholders (manufactures, users, recyclers). And the government needs to harmonize legislations and regulations to reduce compliance burdens on stakeholders.