By Naomi Komeh
Minister for Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Kwaku Afriyie says the government is working towards making Ghana an all-round economy in West Africa with the usage of plastics. He said waste, especially plastics are components which when recycled could rake in more revenue for the country and at the same time help make the environment clean. He said plastics are life-changing resources but the same qualities that make it useful alongside poor waste management have created a global challenge.
Dr. Afriyie said this when he visited the Accra Compost Recycling Plant at Adjen Kotoku as part of his visit to the various waste and recycling sites to engage officials and find solutions to curb the plastic waste menace. He said plastic waste continues to affect the country’s developmental agenda, especially in the areas of health and tourism.
This, the Minister said, has attracted the government’s attention towards making waste ”a key resource for development”.
He said finding solutions to the menace will not only make the country clean but also provide employment for the youth.
“What we mean is that we will recycle everything until the end of use, then we turn them into other things or some into the energy sector and if we can turn them into energy, we can pack them into a useful way and this will also create employment for the youth.”
Accra Compost and Recycling Plant expanded to manage waste and plastics
Managing Director of Accra Compost and Recycling Plant, Padi Tuwor said the facility has been expanded to manage an additional 800 tons per day which is the first of its kind in Africa.
He said with this expansion, the facility will be able to handle close to two thousand tons per day. Mr. Tuwor said they are working with KNUST to go into Refuse Derived Fuel, RDF and if that should happen 95 percent of waste in the country would be recovered, recycled and reused.
“This plant is set up to receive municipal solid waste and then recover as much as we can from the waste because we don’t separate the waste from source. Once we retrieve or recover various fractions we add value to them and resend them back to the system and reuse them. This facility has been operating since 2012 and we’ve just added an additional eight hundred 800 tons per day to the facility which is the first of its kind in Africa from the Netherlands.”
He said that when added to the existing plant it will now be handling close to two thousand (2000) tonnes a day of municipal solid waste from our homes and market areas.