IDG News Service —

International development charity Computer Aid International has challenged the U.K. government to take action to prevent e-waste from being illegally exported and dumped in countries like Ghana, Nigeria and China.

Computer Aid wants the U.K. government to provide the Environment Agency with the resources to effectively police the Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive.

"The Environment Agency must be provided with the resources to police e-waste, prosecute anyone involved in a supply chain that results in the dumping of e-waste, and remove licenses from organizations in breach of the WEEE legislation," said Louise Richards, CEO of Computer Aid.

Richards' comments were in reaction to investigative reports by the U.K. press and Greenpeace, an international environmental organization, that link U.K. organizations to e-waste dumping.

The reports stated that U.K. businesses engage with local traders who pass off the waste as non-hazardous and reusable. The waste is dumped, manually scavenged for metals, then stripped down and incinerated in the open air.

The government should clamp down on fraudulent traders posing as legitimate recycling organizations who are enticing U.K. businesses to use them for disposal of electrical equipment, Richards said in a statement.

“The high volume of environmentally unsound e-waste is driven almost exclusively by the motive of profit, but the cost is borne by the environment and the children who disassemble the equipment,” she added.

Computer Aid has provided 130,000 PCs and laptops to organizations working on e-learning, e-health, e-inclusion and e-agriculture projects in Africa and South America.