CLASP organized an interactive panel discussion on the environmental dumping of cooling products across Africa, and potential solutions to this long-standing challenge. Both new and used cooling appliances, such as residential air conditioners and refrigerators, are exported to, or locally assembled in, African countries. Many of these cooling appliances are low efficiency, contain obsolete high-global warming potential refrigerants, or in the case of some used appliances, are close to the end of their operational life. Environmental dumping of inefficient and obsolete cooling appliances is especially prominent in Africa, where regions at the receiving end of this problem often rely on product imports and lack effective standards and institutional capacity to prevent dumping and properly dispose of or recycle obsolete appliances.
This panel event offers an opportunity to learn more about how the environmental dumping challenge is defined, the impacts of environmental dumping on the ground, policy solutions to prevent environmental dumping, and opportunities to address the challenges associated with proper end-of-life disposal and recycling of e-waste containing refrigerants, like air conditioners and refrigerators.