Used car imports are turning Zimbabwe into a silent toxic dump

Every day, under the relentless African sun, hundreds of second-hand vehicles roll off container ships and transporters at Zimbabwe's border posts and ports.

Their origins are neatly stamped on import papers: Japan and the United Kingdom - countries with strict environmental regulations and an unrelenting push toward newer, cleaner vehicles.

To many Zimbabweans, these imported sedans, minibuses and trucks are more than machines. They are affordable mobility, the backbone of public transport, a lifeline for small businesses and a symbol of personal progress in a struggling economy.

On paper, they are perfectly legal imports.

But beneath the polished hoods and shiny exteriors of many of these vehicles lies a hidden and toxic cargo - one that could legally qualify as hazardous waste.

As the global north rapidly upgrades its fleets, a quiet and poisonous transfer is unfolding, effectively turning developing countries like Zimbabwe into dumping grounds for the automotive past.

What the Border Misses

At major entry points such as Beitbridge and Chirundu, customs officials focus on duty assessment, stolen vehicle checks and documentation verification.

What they rarely scrutinise is what many of these vehicles contain:
asbestos in brake pads and clutch plates, mercury in tilt switches, lead-acid batteries, contaminated engine oil laden with heavy metals, and outdated electronic control units.

To an overstretched official, if it looks like a car and drives like one, it passes as a car.

The hazardous components are simply treated as part of the whole.

Zimbabwe Revenue Authority (Zimra) spokesperson Gladman Njanji confirmed that inspections are not designed to dissect vehicles for embedded toxic materials.

"The control of hazardous waste and full implementation of the Bamako Convention on the Transboundary Movement and Management of Hazardous Waste falls directly under EMA, who currently have a presence at all major ports of entry, including Chirundu," Njanji said.

He added that Zimra enforces the convention mainly by regulating exporters through the Authorised Economic Operator (AEO) system under the Customs and Excise Act.

But critics argue that this system focuses on who is trading, not what is being traded.

EMA Admits an Enforcement Gap

The Environmental Management Agency (EMA), the authority legally responsible for hazardous waste control, conceded a major gap.

EMA spokesperson Amkela Sidange acknowledged that second-hand vehicles are not physically inspected for hazardous components.

"We might not have for now gone deeper into issues of inspecting vehicles," Sidange admitted.

"But generally, when we look at fluid hazardous waste coming into the country, we use existing laws to ensure that we shield ourselves from being a dumping ground."

Zimbabwe is a signatory to the Bamako Convention, which outright bans the importation of hazardous waste into Africa. Sidange said the country has domesticated the treaty through the Environmental Management Act.

"That Act is the umbrella law that prohibits the importation, distribution and disposal of hazardous waste," she said.

Yet in practice, enforcement appears largely reactive, focusing on disposal long after the toxic materials have already entered the country.

"We always ask for environmentally friendly ways of disposing batteries and oils, but we leave all that to the manufacturing industry," Sidange said.

That stance effectively shifts responsibility to a largely informal downstream sector, long after the environmental damage has been imported.

Exporting Pollution, Importing Risk

Environmental experts say the trade is driven by a sharp economic and regulatory imbalance.

In Japan and the UK, strict end-of-life vehicle (ELV) regulations make proper dismantling and recycling expensive. Exporting old vehicles to markets like Zimbabwe is often cheaper than legally disposing of them at home.

Harare-based environmentalist Billy Sauti described it bluntly.

"This is not just trade; it's the externalisation of environmental risk," Sauti said.

"The global north avoids its disposal headaches and profits, while we inherit a public-health time bomb."

Experts warn that the timer on that bomb is set for two to five years - the average lifespan of many ageing imports under local conditions.

When they fail, the toxins spill into Zimbabwe's fragile waste system.

Asbestos brake pads are ground into dust in roadside workshops.

Mercury switches are smashed or burned with scrap metal.

Lead-acid batteries are cracked open in backyards, acid poured into the soil, and lead melted over open fires.

Contaminated engine oil is dumped into drains or sprayed on dirt roads to suppress dust.

The Human Cost

The crisis has a human face in scrapyards like Chikwanha in Chitungwiza.

There, Tinashe Meki (24) dismantles dead vehicles with a hammer and chisel - no gloves, no mask, no protective boots. The air is thick with oil fumes, rust and burning plastic.

"I buy scrap metal from old cars and sell it to big companies that make steel in Kwekwe," he said, wiping sweat with a dirty hand.

He earns about US$200 a month.

"The dust makes me cough sometimes, but what choice do I have?" he asked.

In Chinhoyi, Garikai Chipato, another unemployed youth, scavenges farms and residential plots for abandoned vehicle shells.

"I move around collecting scrap metal from broken-down vehicles for resale," he said.

Like Meki, Chipato works without protection, trading long-term health for daily survival.

These informal recyclers have become Zimbabwe's de facto end-of-life vehicle industry - performing an essential economic role while absorbing the health risks of carcinogens and neurotoxins.

A Convention Circumvented

Adopted in 1991, the Bamako Convention was Africa's defiant response to being treated as the world's dumping ground.

Its spirit was clear: no hazardous waste imports, period.

But this investigation shows how the convention is being quietly undermined by a trade that disguises hazardous waste as functional goods.

The toxins are not shipped in labelled barrels. They arrive embedded in vehicles that drive economies.

This grey zone is where enforcement collapses.

Environmental officers at borders lack the mandate, equipment and technical capacity to identify asbestos gaskets or mercury switches inside thousands of monthly imports. Full inspections are logistically impossible without major policy shifts and investment.

A Silent Crisis on Wheels

As Zimbabwe opens its borders to affordable mobility, it is also opening a gateway to a silent toxic trade.

The wheels will keep turning - fuelled by global inequality and local necessity - until the definition of a "vehicle" at the border includes its environmental footprint at death.

Until enforcement agencies are empowered to look beyond paperwork and under the chassis.

And until the world accepts that exporting a driving hazard to avoid a disposal problem is not progress - but poison on wheels.