The “Education for Changing the Electronic Waste Cycle in Burundi” project – Update


In January 2015, The King Baudouin Foundation, WorldLoop and Great Lakes Initiatives for Communities Empowerment (GLICE)  kicked off a 3-year project in Burundi, “Education for Changing the Electronic Waste Cycle in Burundi”. After impressive results in 2015, GLICE is working towards achieving the 2016 objective to strengthen the capacities of the WEEE centre:

  • Raise awareness and awaken environmentally friendly behaviors amongst citizens.
  • Increase the volume of collections, from 30 tonnes to 50 tonnes.
  • Strengthen central structures: the number of workers, infrastructure and finance.
  • Export the complex fractions to Europe for their recovery and pollution control.
  • Advocacy to propose a legal framework to facilitate the collection and environmentally sound management of electronic waste in Burundi.

For this first half of the year, GLICE has successfully raised awareness to the general public through 2 infomercials in written press, 2 infomercials on the radio, 1 infomercial on TV, production and distribution of flyers concerning the Centre’s activities, presentation at the “awareness raising” days in 2 universities. Those initiatives were welcomed by the population, as GLICE has now more contracts from collection. For the second half of 2016, GLICE will be increasing its efforts towards collection volumes, to meet the objective of 50 tonnes collected by the end of the year.