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Hewlett-Packard helps build Kenya e-waste plant
San Francisco Business Times - by Steven E.F. Brown
Date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010, 12:54pm PST
Related:
Technology

Computer and printer maker Hewlett-Packard Co. is helping build an electronic waste recycling plant in Kenya along with an Irish nonprofit, Camara Education Ltd.
Palo Alto-based HP (NYSE: HPQ) and Dublin’s Camara are putting this plant in Mombassa, on the coast, where there aren’t any such facilities right now (only the capital, Nairobi, has any significant e-waste recycling, and it’s expensive to truck discarded junk more than 300 miles by road, which takes up to six hours. Train trips take 13 hours between the cities.). They hope to open the plant by the end of the year.
Having a port facility also makes it easier to ship recycled material overseas for sale or further processing.
Computer use is growing in Kenya, but the use of mobile phones is growing even faster, and they generate a great deal of electronic device waste.
Kenya’s government said cell phone connections grew by 34 percent between 2008 and 2009, hitting 17.4 million.
Refrigerators, televisions, computers, printers and phones make up most of the e-waste generated in Kenya, according to the United Nations.
Camara is a charity that seeks to improve education in Africa through technology. It has two main businesses -- education and computer reuse. People and companies in Ireland donate used computers and Camara wipes them of data, loads up new software, and uses them in Africa.


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