In February, members of Tanzania’s Buni Hub maker space created Africa’s first-ever 3D printer from e-waste, using discarded electronic parts to help advance technology, Tyler Koslow reports in 3DPrint.com.
Now another lab in Togo, West Africa, has just announced an e-waste-based 3D printer of its own.
Back in 2012, Togolese architect Sénamé Agboginou founded the WoeLab, an organization focused on locally sourcing and creating sustainable technology to help promote urban renewal in Togo. Located near Lomé University, the maker space serves as the first incubator and fabrication lab in Togo, housing a number of startups, designers, and entrepreneurs.
One of WoeLab’s brightest members is 22-year-old Togo native, Lalle Nadjagou, who is using the space and e-waste to create a mini 3D printer.
During the last decade, world media organizations have reported on what’s believed to be a growing crisis: the export—or dumping—of electronic waste from rich, developed countries into Africa. It’s a little more complicated than that, the Smithsonian reports. According to the U.N. Environment Programme, 85 percent of the e-waste dumped in West Africa is produced in West Africa.
Africans are finding a lot of ways to make money off that e-waste.
“In most developing countries, there are an enormous number of self-employed people engaged in the collection and recycling of e-waste,” noted the U.N. University report, “Global E-Waste Monitor 2014.”
“They usually work on a door-to-door basis to buy e-waste from consumers at home, and then they sell it to refurbishers and recyclers,” Knowledge@Wharton reports. These types of informal collection activities provide many unskilled workers with a way to make a living.
“E-waste right now is a material in Africa,” Agboginou said. “We have to think what we can do to deal with it. Maybe we will have a big economy based on the transformation of waste… maybe e-waste will be the new gold.”
WoeLab community members were inspired to make their own 3D printer from e-waste after buying and building a Prusa 3D printer. Prusa claims on its website that its Prusa i3 is the most used 3D printer on Earth, according to 3DHubs.
After raising $4,000 on a crowdfunding campaign, the WoeLab team used e-waste components from computers, scanners, and other electronic devices to produce the W.Afate 3D printer, named after WoeLab member Kodjo Afate Gnikou.
Their 3D printer is being used by local firm, Africa Tracing, which is 3D-printing plastic casings for its vehicle GPS technology, 3DPrint.com reports.
The WoeLab wants to use recycled e-waste 3D printers for education, and has launched an initiative to put W.Afate 3D printers in schools throughout Lomé. In a country where about 60 percent of people live in poverty, offering access to emerging and self-sustainable technologies is a viable way to improve their livelihood, 3DPrint.com reports.
“We want to put a 3D printer in every school and cyber cafe in this one kilometer area of Lomé,” Agboginou said. “We are working with 10 schools this year and teaching the young people how to draw in 3D in school and after, the idea is to put the 3D printers in each one of these schools… our objective is to put them in the hands of everyone.”
WoeLab locally sources their e-waste from across Togo’s capital, particularly from Action Sociale pour Le Developpement Integral (ASDI) recycling center. The ASDI is heavily stocked with discarded electronic components, many being used by 11 startups in the WoeLab. Aside from the mini 3D printer project headed by Nadjagou, other community members and startups are working to build drones and jerry can computers out of e-waste materials as well.
WoeLab members are also working on the Ifan project, which they describe as a “multifunctional agricultural robot” also made from recycled electronic components. The Lomé-based maker space needs funding to help jumpstart their educational initiative, and will continue to offer workspace and hacking camps to local residents throughout the year.
The WoeLab, like many active maker spaces in Africa, centers most projects around e-waste, the ideal way to keep emerging technologies affordable, local, and in a state of constant development and improvement.
