E-waste & IT Education charity founder Nathaniel Comer – talks about illegal dumping of toxic computer waste and his work changing lives via IT asset Disposal across UK and Africa.

E-Waste is one of the world’s greatest problems – and opportunities.

Today – 80% of the world’s electronic waste is “unaccounted for”. Earth’s copper & platinum reserves are predicted to run out within 30 years; gold & silver within 15-20 years.

However – over $65bn of metals lie dormant in IT & E-waste, so the opportunity for recycling & the Circular Economy has never been more important.

Some conversations you don’t forget. In 2008 I met two teachers from Ghana, West Africa who shocked me with their story of the hundreds of old, broken PCs donated to their schools in the name of charity; how they stacked them to make desks, & worse still, burned them for scrap metal.

The horrible truth is that over the last 4 decades, low & middle-income countries have been the unwitting victims of a truly broken IT Charity model – which has flooded West Africa, as well as many other “soft-target” nations with “donations” of E-waste, creating the most toxic places on earth.

18 million children, some as young as 6, pick through these “digital dumps”, and in nations like Ghana and Sierra Leone, IT curriculum leads to school exams being prepared for using only wall-posters of keyboards & mice; with school leavers failing to join an increasingly digital workforce – and thus the cycle of generational poverty is maintained.

In the nations of West-Africa, the traditional IT Charity model of “here’s an old PC we no longer want” has not only caused HUGE toxic E-Waste, but has worsened the digital divide. One could argue that IT access in the majority of West African nations is at best where the UK was 30 years ago.

We should be proud that the UK has the world’s leading legislation & accreditations for the disposal & processing of IT & electronic waste – but even so – only 30% of businesses see responsible IT disposal as a Sustainability priority.

750 entities in the UK purport to process, refurbish, & recycle IT & Electronic waste. yet only 5 are accredited to the highest IT Asset Disposal Security standards.
It was for these reasons that I founded Sun Screen IT to provide IT & Electronic asset disposal services for local, national, & global companies via a Strategic Partnership with Centerprise International and to donate 100% profit to Sun Screen IT Foundation (Registered Charity 1182025) which uses that funding to deploy sustainable IT Access to young people in areas of economic need globally.

Sun Screen IT’s clients receive quarterly ESG reports on their impact on the circular economy, the Carbon, Water, & raw mining savings achieved and the life-changing Education Outcomes funded by the margin donated from their IT disposal business.

For every Pallet of IT E-waste responsibly recycled, or refurbed & resold – Sun Screen IT deliver life changing IT access to 27 pupils per year – and have delivered to thousands of pupils in places such as Sierra Leone, Ghana, and the UK.

Their latest donations include IT for 800 girls & young women at the Getaway Girls Charity in Leeds which featured on BBC DIY SOS’ Big Build for Children in Need in November.

In 2020 – Sun Screen IT Foundation & volunteers from Cutter Group Desktop Specialists deployed a sustainable Thin-Client Computing Lab, serving 2000 local students, to the Lifeline Nehemiah Project School, in Freetown Sierra Leone.