Characteristics and management of scrap metal waste in Cotonou in the Republic of Benin

Abstract

The development of new technology leads to the consumption of new equipment which finally becomes hazardous waste and difficult to manage. This is what was observed in the city of Cotonou in the Republic of Benin which motivated the initiative of this study, the main objective of which is to describe the mode of management of these types of waste. The data collected concerns the types of electrical and electronic equipment used by professional users and households, as well as their conditions at acquisition and their lifespans. The data were collected from households, professional users and waste pickers. After the collection, the data were entered in the Microsoft Excel 2013 spreadsheet for the analysis and then the calculations of the means, the frequencies and the production of the graphs were carried out with the SPSS 21 software. It has been revealed that among professional users, universities and administrations are major producers of scrap metal, where respectively 30% and 16% of scrap metal was recovered. According to information gathered from these players, 79% of their equipment purchases took place on the local market. At household level, radios, televisions, telephones and refrigerators are the most widely used equipment. Like other electronic and computer equipment, the households surveyed also use computers, printers, DVD players, video players, landline and portable telephones, electronic gadgets, cameras and refrigerators. At the end of its life, 66% of the households surveyed throw their equipment in the trash cans like household waste. This discarded waste is collected by the waste pickers. Among the scrap metal recovered from the latter, motorcycle and car wrecks, television sets are the most popular with respectively 16%, 15% and 14%. Next are refrigerators for 13%, batteries for 12%, followed by electronic and computer devices.