In areas with low penetration of grid-based electricity, off-grid solar (OGS) devices have for the last decade played an important role of providing light and access to communications. However, this has come at a cost in terms of creation of streams of electronic waste. To shed light on this issue, this paper explores how broken-down OGS are handled by post-consumption value-chain actors, and which factors are essential for reducing the amount of OGS-derived waste. The study is based on a household survey and interviews with value-chain actors. The Global Value Chain Framework was used for analysis. The empirical findings reveal that broken devices do not follow a linear trajectory from consumer to end destination, but rather move back and forth between repair and consumer, and even between different repair options, and that devices might hibernate at all these nodes, until they find an end-destination. Broken devices stored at home comprised 72 % while only 8 % were disposed of. Repair rates were high for devices brought to firm and informal repair shops alike, but the latter mainly did simple repairs due to a lack of skills, ‘black-box engineering’ and limited access to spare parts. Unlike other countries in the region, the vast majority of the broken devices are provided by larger international companies which, through their warranty and take-back schemes, could collect a significant percentage of the waste stream and repair or redirect it into established schemes for the recycling. In spite of recent attempts of regulation, this still has to materialize.

中文翻译：

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为当地社区带来光明、连通性和废物处理：对肯尼亚离网太阳能设备消费后价值链的研究

在电网电力渗透率较低的地区，离网太阳能 (OGS) 设备在过去十年中在提供照明和通信方面发挥了重要作用。然而，这是以产生电子废物流为代价的。为了阐明这个问题，本文探讨了消费后价值链参与者如何处理分解的OGS，以及哪些因素对于减少OGS产生的废物量至关重要。该研究基于家庭调查和对价值链参与者的采访。使用全球价值链框架进行分析。实证结果表明，损坏的设备并不遵循从消费者到最终目的地的线性轨迹，而是在维修和消费者之间，甚至在不同的维修选项之间来回移动，并且设备可能会在所有这些节点上休眠，直到它们发现一个最终目的地。存放在家里的损坏设备占 72%，而只有 8% 被处理掉。送到正规和非正规维修店的设备的维修率都很高，但由于缺乏技能、“黑匣子工程”和获得备件的机会有限，后者主要进行简单维修。与该地区其他国家不同，绝大多数损坏的设备是由较大的国际公司提供的，这些公司通过其保修和回收计划，可以收集很大比例的废物流并进行修复或将其重新引导到既定计划中回收。尽管最近尝试进行监管，但这仍然必须实现。