Africa: The world’s only rubbish dump

The controversy over dumping of toxic waste in Côte d'Ivoire continues, even after an Ivorian minster said the country had “no intention of becoming the world's garbage dump".

But perhaps there’s more to this ‘waste dump saga’ in the form of a sterling business opportunity. I had my windshield replaced on Friday (the consequence of Africa’s rapid growth is that there are lots of trucks filled with building material on the roads) and was flabbergasted when the glass technician told me that we don’t have the technology to recycle the glass, we just throw it away. A few calls to some of South Africa’s big glass recycling firms confirmed that no one seems to be too interested in the glass that protects billions of motorists daily.

While I’m by no means a green, I do get a little annoyed with wastage – especially when its sanctioned by a rather lazy norm. Indolent because it’s been easy to just throw away the broken glass rather than seeking available alternatives or developing new methods. Sure, windshield glass is not easy to recycle because of plastic laminates that are used to make them stronger and heating and radio wires, and recyclers will argue that this makes it unviable, but this isn’t really an excuse.

If Africa does not do something to encourage recycling – either by making it more expensive to dispose of waste than the costs related to recycling or by providing tax incentives to start-up recycling firms with clear cut-off times to become sustainable within – then we have every intention of becoming the world's garbage dump.

The ability to import modern cars and other advanced products is wonderful, but it is equally –if not more– important that Africa imports the mechanisms that have been introduced to manage the waste that these goods bring. Otherwise this irresponsibility may in time earn Africa the title of the ‘world’s only rubbish dump’.

However, this rather gloomy title is unecessary. All that is required is a few visionary businessmen who can find profit where everyone else sees junk.

Botswana’s wee problem

I have been thinking about Botswana’s wee problem for while now. The country has a well-educated population, but has been unable to attract investment that would utilize this because as a landlocked country with a population of under two million it is a difficult market to develop. Given the skills base that is already in place, this is perhaps one of the few African countries that would be better off with far more people to provide this base with a population to service. This will make it possible to generate wealth and diversify an economy that, although stable, is woefully too dependent on mining.

At the African Business Leaders Forum that I am currently attending, President of Uganda, Yoweri Museveni, said that one of Africa’s bottlenecks to development was that its population, relative to the size of Africa, was too small. He argued that Africa’s population is smaller than India’s, yet India is one tenth of its size and this was a stumbling block to development.

However, the president’s argument is flawed partly in that India had a broad base of skills to draw from first which could then be used to service a large economy. India's massive middle class of over 200 million shows clearly that skills must have been in place. While it is true that high densities make economies of scale easier, the skills base that is needed to provide services is still largely absent on the continent.

I do not think that it is wise to make statements about quantity while forgetting quality. This is not only an argument about economies of scale, but also of the quality of the workforce. Chris Kirubi, a prominent Kenyan business executive who is taking part in the ABLF added that although it is not a case of slowing population growth, leaders needed to make sure that economies could sustain the population and that an uneducated population must not be produced. Africa’s potential is enormous, but we lack implementers he added.

I tend to agree, this continent has unimaginable resources that can be used, as Botswana has shown, to build many high-capacity economies. It’s a pity that Botswana has the problem it currently has, especially given that it took steps to develop in the right order. First skill people, then build a country. The idea that simply growing the population without giving the population any guidance will solve Africa’s development problems is astoundingly short-sighted. While I do not believe that the president has failed to see that increasing the population alone would not be enough to encourage development, it is very easy to think the two are causally related when they are in fact only very distant cousins that have never had any knowledge of one another until just recently.

Perhaps it is just a case of realising that although one needs to build bridges before one can cross a river, one needs to build engineers before the bridge can even be thought of being built