Takoradi Contributes To The Government Waste Management Report

The Ministry of Environment Science and Technology (MEST) has collated views in Takoradi to further enhance a Committee's report on ways to effectively manage plastic waste in the country. The views of the stakeholders are expected to be incorporated into the report for implementation soon. Presenting a paper on "job creation through plastic waste management", Madam Adelaide A. Asante, Research Officer with the Ministry said, plastic collection and sorting centers would be created in each district to buy, to sort and to resell plastic wastes. This is expected to create jobs for about 1,000 people in the plastic sorting centres across the country consisting of 13-30 permanent jobs in each centre. According to the Research Officer, the centres were expected to generate between 200 and 4,000 tones of plastics per month with a potential revenue generation of GH¢ 60,000 and GH¢ 1,200,000 per month. Madam Asante said the total cost of the programme was estimated at GH¢ 530,000, which would be used for feasibility studies, public awareness campaign, establishment of sorting centres in the municipalities and districts, personal emoluments for the six months and the creation of a national digital data base. She indicated that the education would touch on the need for households to separate refuse generated by dumping plastics in separate bins. Mr Peter Dery, an official of MEST said the management of plastic waste in Ghana is faced with many challenges. He mentioned some as lack of appropriate planning, poor technology, weak enforcement, absence of policy incentives, inappropriate marketing strategy for recycled plastics products and attitudinal behavior of consumers. In a speech read on his behalf, Mr Paul Evans Aidoo, Western Regional Minister, urged the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to team up with law enforcement agencies to carry out monitoring exercises to arrest and prosecute recalcitrant people. He said good sanitation is health, therefore, anti social practices such as indiscriminate littering of refuse must not be tolerated. The stakeholders stressed the need for the subject matter to be taught in schools starting from the kindergarten in order to inculcate good environmental practices in children so that they did not depart from it. Mr George Scott, Chief Director of MEST chaired the function and allayed the fears of producers of sachet water that their operations would be banned.