According to the director general of the company Net Service Angola, António Bartolomeu, although Angola is beginning to be aware that electrical and electronic waste is harmful to the environment, much is still lost when this type of waste is left on the street.
"This is very worrying, because what is lost in terms of the waste that remains in the heaps on the street, could be the guarantor of some profit for companies," said the official in Luanda.
Speaking at the end of the launching ceremony for the "Recycling Month Awareness Campaign", the manager defended the culture of selecting that specific waste for its further treatment for the benefit of the country.
For António Bartolomeu, the current garbage heaps that occur, especially in the capital, could be avoided if the selection of this waste started from the source for its better reuse.
"If people were, from the source, encouraged to select their waste and contact specific companies to treat this type of waste, we would avoid the heaps of waste," he noted.
"Nevertheless, I also think that today with the new proposal for the management of Mulenvos (Landfill in Luanda) it will make it much easier, because a lot of waste leaves the homes of contaminated people and there is no such separation and so for companies it is very difficult" , he pointed out.
António Bartolomeu also considered that "when this product [electric and electronic waste] is not recycled, the country loses a lot of raw material", at a time when the level of imports "decreased a lot due to the few currencies that exist".
"And, therefore, with the raw material produced at the local level, if there is no specialized industry to recover this material, it could be exported to guarantee foreign exchange to the country," he concluded.
The "Recycling Month Awareness Campaign", on the occasion of World Recycling Day, which takes place on the 17th of May, runs in Angola until July.
The campaign, called "Where does the waste that we all produce" go to, is overseen by the National Waste Agency (ANR) of Angola.
