The Minister of Environment, Science and Technology (MEST) has issued a strong warning to scrap dealers at the Agbogbloshie scrap enclave to stop burning electronic waste (e-waste) and other materials.

Ibrahim Murtala Mohammed said government will not “tolerate the burning” of e-waste, indicating that such activities posed major health risks to both the scrap dealers and the entire community.

“…The fact that there are some materials or copper, they only have to burn them to be able to have access to the copper. The burning, trust me, we will not tolerate it,” he said.

“It is for their own individual health and the collective health of everybody, because when they are burned, they are exposed to some dangerous substances, which are not good for their health, and also expose the entirety of Accra and the people who live around that place."

Mr Mohammed gave the caution during an interaction with scrap dealers at Agbogbloshie, in Accra, when he paid a working visit to the area on Tuesday.

The visit was to give the Minister firsthand information on the activities of the "returned" scrap dealers to the yard following their eviction by the previous administration in July 2023.

It was also to learn about their operational challenges, including the failure to give their collected waste to the E-Waste Collection Centre at Agbogbloshie. This is to enable the Ministry to proffer solutions through policy formulation.

The E-Waste Collection Centre was established in 2021 with the responsibility of collecting waste, particularly e-waste from collectors and providing incentives in return.

It was also to retrieve valuable metals, such as copper, from the waste through a controlled burning system.

However, over the past few years, the collectors have refused to send their materials to the Centre, citing poor incentives.

Mr Mohammed urged the scrap collectors to resume their operations with the Centre, equipped with a system to ensure proper extraction of the copper and other precious metals from the waste.

“We have a collection centre here which has the responsibility to collect this electronic waste from these young men and women and then give them some incentives. My information is that they are no longer willing to bring that electronic waste here for the incentives they get," the Minister said.

The Minister assured them that a committee would immediately be set up to engage the leadership of the scrap dealers to review the incentives.

He said: “From here, I'm going to constitute a committee, chaired by the chief director himself so that we can review the incentives that are given to them.”

He appealed to the leadership to support the new administration to curb the incessant burning of waste.

Mohammed Ali, Secretary of Gthe reater Accra Scrap Dealers Association, appealed to the Government to regularise their activities to enable them to make a living.

With more than 6,000 registered members and 20,000 direct and indirect dependents, Mr Ali said the economic life of those scrap dealers would worsen if they were evicted again.

Even though their return to the yard might have gone against some rules governing the country, they could not afford to stay away due to the economic burden they grappled with, he said.

“We realised that for three years, we have not been working and that is what motivated us to just enter this yard, so, please we may have done something which you didn't like," Mr Ali said.

“We didn't do it with the intention that we had the authority to do anything.”

Mr Ali assured the Minister of the group's commitment to abiding by all set rules and regulations, explaining its efforts to reduce open burning and adhere to stricter safety measures.

Thus, he said, a task force had been established to monitor the area and ensure that people did not engage in such burning activities.