“Education for Changing the Electronic Waste Cycle in Burundi” project update


With our support and the King Baudouin Foundation, WorldLoop’s partner GLICE has successfully completed its first year of the project named “Education for Changing the Electronic Waste Cycle in Burundi”. After validation of the feasibility study conducted during the second half of 2014, GLICE formally started the project in January 2015. GLICE has shown impressive results for this first year of the project.

GLICE has established a Center that collects, registers, dismantles and stock electronic waste, in Bujumbura, Burundi. The center also refurbishes the electronics that have a potential second life. It has 5 workers in charge of the logistics (collection, registration, dismantling of e-waste), 2 people in charge of the overall coordination of the Center, as well as a night watchman for security purposes.

The success of this project is also due to the exceptional job made  raising awareness. GLICE has heavily invested time and energy in making an eco-citizen awareness about the dangers of inappropriate management of WEEE towards the environment and health. Several activities were carried out: official letters to various authorities and officials, awareness workshops in Gitega and Bujumbura, articles in newspapers, messages in the audio press, infomercials on TV, visit of the Center by the Minister for the environment, in the presence of the press.

Moreover, the center had started turning a small profit by refurbishing and reselling functional equipment under a guarantee, and selling the separated valuable fractions.
In 2014, GLICE participated in the “UJASIRIAMALI” workshop, a capacity building workshop for companies that work towards reducing the digital divide or the ecological management of electronic waste.