The recent proliferation of electronic waste (E-waste) in developing countries has become a pressing environmental and socio-economic issue, particularly in urban areas where informal waste management practices dominate. The current E-waste collection system in Yaoundé comprises three streams: informal, formal, and municipal solid waste collection. However, transitioning to a prospective, integrated system requires optimizing E-waste collection. Given that the current formal collection (CFC) scenario has only 3 formal collection points, this study employs a survey-based approach and GIS network analysis to allocate 8 additional collection points to maximize formal collection coverage and quantity in Yaoundé. The applied methodologies included the consumer and use model and GIS-based location-allocation, service-area, and route-optimization analyses. The results indicate a 52.81% increase in formal collection quantity for the maximized formal collection (MFC) scenario. Furthermore, Route 1 proved to be the most cost-effective, with a fuel consumption cost of 806,472.25 FCFA/year. Additionally, Route 1 yielded the lowest GHG emissions, at 2610.32 kg CO2 eq/year, compared with Routes 2 and 3. Finally, transitioning from the current business-as-usual (BAU) to a prospective integrated E-waste management (IEM) system resulted in a 13.83% potential reduction in emissions. This emission reduction contributed 3.04% to Cameroon’s nationally determined contributions (NDCs) 2030 target for greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction in the waste sector. The study’s outcome proves informative for decision-making in optimizing E-waste management systems in developing economies.
Esopere et al. (Fri,) studied this question.