The electronics industry generates up to 41 million tonnes of electronic waste ‘e-waste’ that brings with it an ever growing problem worldwide especially in Africa as certain countries have become dumping grounds for electronics from Europe and North America. After WWII and the gradual independence of the African countries much of the military materials of the colonial powers from Europe were leftover in many Africa countries. Since then the e-waste started also to grow in Africa as some African counties were used as dumping places of electronic waste. This represents an additional pile-up of waste besides the home-made waste being produce in Africa. Recycling industries in the developed countries are based on turning waste to profitable products with least possible economic resources otherwise the waste is shipped elsewhere. WoeLab, an African 3D-printing innovation that is now stepping up its small-scale recycling efforts on the African continent. It is a way of combating the e-waste in Africa and members of the Tanzanian community technology hub joined together to create Africa’s first-ever 3D printer from e-waste. Such newly born industry is utilizing the discarded electronic parts to help advance the technology of the region where about 60% live in poverty thus offering access to emerging and self-sustainable technologies to improve their livelihood.

Generally speaking, global waste is gradually piling up and we are constantly and continuously pushing peak-waste more and more into uncertain and unknown distant future. This without hesitation will bring humanity to a wave of successive threats in the same way as the COVID-19 crisis that we are going through now. The amount of human garbage is rising fast and won’t peak this century unless global transformational changes in responsible production and consumption can take place (https://www.worldbank.org/en/news/feature/2013/10/30/global-waste-on-pace-to-triple). By 2100, the growing global urban population will be producing three times as much waste as it does today. That level of waste carries serious consequences for our cities, and the global environments as well, around the world.

It is certain that environmental destruction because of waste is enormous (https://www.nature.com/news/environment-waste-production-must-peak-this-century-1.14032). Solid waste ((https://www.theworldcounts.com/challenges/planet-earth/state-of-the-planet/solid-waste). Waste is mostly an urban phenomenon as compared to rural communities because of less packaged products, less food waste and less manufacturing. The acceleration of waste in the 21st century that already started in the 20th century because of the global transformation from agricultural to industrial activities brought with it much of new and serious threats to the atmosphere (https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/earth-and-planetary-sciences/gaseous-waste), e.g. greenhouse gases and climate change and degradation in air quality. Also, to the biosphere, e.g. collapse of biodiversity, the ecosphere with degeneration of eco-systems services and the hydrosphere (https://www.google.se/amp/s/www.transparencymarketresearch.com/amp/liquid-waste-management-market.html), e.g. degradation in water quality of the global water resources. The countries of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are the largest waste generators, producing around 1.75 million tonnes per day. This is expected to increase until 2050 due to urban population growth and projections to 2100 show that global ‘peak waste’ will not happen this century (https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/when-will-we-hit-peak-garbage-7074398/) if current trends continue in the same way, i.e. ‘business-as-usual’. This is although waste in OECD countries will peak by 2050 and Asia–Pacific countries by 2075, waste will continue to rise in the fast-growing cities of sub-Saharan Africa. We produce 11 billions ton of waste every year, i.e. on average over one ton of waste by everyone of us on the planet. What regards solid waste it comes from construction and demolition (36/%), household (24%), industry (21%), commercial (11%), water supply and sewage (5%) and energy production (3%). Add to this gaseous and liquid waste. How soon the world’s trash problem begins to decline, i.e. the global peak waste, will depend upon how soon Sub-Saharan Africa will manage to decrease it’s own waste production, e.g. through prevention, reuse and upcycling, recycling, reduction, controlled and uncontrolled disposal.