In less than 5 years, Ibagué would 'drown' in scrap metal

This was indicated by a report by Cortolima. Appliances and devices flood river banks.
Scrap yards, streets and banks of rivers and streams, stop a good part of the electrical and
electronic equipment (EEE) discarded by the inhabitants of the province once they reach
their useful life. Objects such as washing machines, televisions, microwave ovens, sound
equipment, video, monitors, irons, dryers, coffee makers, blenders, computers and cell
phones are discarded in educational institutions, hospitals, state entities, companies and
mainly in homes.
A diagnosis of the management given to the ESA, carried out by the Regional
Autonomous Corporation of Tolima (Cortolima) revealed that 7 out of 10 residues of
these components do not have proper handling or final disposal, since they are collected
by informal recyclers or by cleaning companies without environmental license for this
work.
Ibagué is an important consumer of EEE insofar as in a single year, close to 1,900,000
devices were sold, of which 87 percent, once they reach their useful life, will become
waste, "said Jorge Enrique Cardozo, director of Cortolima.,Cardozo added that a residue
of these is considered dangerous because of the inadequate disposition, since it causes
potential effects on human health and the environment, especially.
The study also showed that the managers, who are the junkyards and the cleaning
companies that do the collection, are not formalized properly for these tasks.
The figures revealed that in 2016, 36,273 units were sold in refrigeration; 112,000
household appliances; 32,836 lighting apparatus; 62,218 devices with monitor and
175,942 computers and printers. In total, 419,924 electrical and electronic devices were
sold.
"Ibague has 558,000 inhabitants, which leads us to conclude that last year 75 percent of
that population had a new EEE," said Cardozo, adding that, in the short term, the waste
of devices with monitors and screens will abound.
A projection of useful life of the AEE concluded that, by 2030, the city will not know
what to do with 72,000 large refrigeration appliances converted to waste, while by 2027
there will be 100,000 waste of large and medium-sized appliances, as well as 42,000 of
lighting devices.
As households are the largest consumers, between 2018 and 2020, about 300 thousand
PCs and devices with monitors and screens will be discarded.
Marcelo Rodríguez, Cortolima technician, pointed out that the figures are worrisome
since the diagnosis was made from 2016 without counting previous years "which leads
us to deduce that the figures of polluting waste in our water sources are much higher"

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He said that the 38 scrap yards in the city are going to stop much of this type of garbage
that is sold by informal recyclers, "but a high percentage that is not purchased, is finally
thrown into water sources becoming hazardous waste."
Due to all this problem, Cortolima considers it urgent to update the integral solid waste
management plan taking into account or including the proper handling of waste from
electrical and electronic equipment. The above, adequate to the national public policy and
Law 1672 of 2013