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Innovative business strategies to tackle Ghana’s growing plastic menace
Plastic waste
This time of the year has always been a nightmare for Mavis Adjare.
Seasonal floods have been disruptive for the 45-year-old who makes her living collecting plastic waste and selling it to recyclers.
This year that has changed. Mavis picks 100 kilogramme bags of plastic waste easily at the confluence of the Kpeshieriver and the Atlantic Ocean.
Until mid-2022, the mother of three says, the onset of rain or hot weather threatened her livelihood and the future of her children. Mavis used to comb lorry stations and Accra suburbs -Tseaddo and Teshie – for plastic waste. Now she picks the plastics with ease.
“All I see is plastic waste of different shades, colours and sizes, swimming through the Kpeshie Lagoon into the sea,” Mavis says with joy.
The task of clearing the vast amounts of plastics and other waste that wash onto beaches here has been a major concern for operators of some of Accra’s most popular leisure facilities – theLabadi Beach Hotel and the Labomah Beach – located along the shore.
The waste, 80 per cent of it plastic, is often collected and set ablaze at the shore- a major worry for the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which says the practice is a growing source of air pollution in Ghana’s capital. The Kpeshie Lagoon is just one of the many lagoons along Ghana’s 550-kilometer coast through which tonnes of waste plastic leaks into the sea.
Nine per cent of the nearly one million metric tonnes of plastic waste generated in Ghana annually leaks into the ocean, according to the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI). It leaks because so much of Ghana’s plastic waste – nearly 90 per cent – is not properly disposed, clogging up stormwater drains, rivers, and streams and ending up in the oceans, according to a 2020 report by the World Bank.
Many collectors, including Mavis, have joined associations that coordinate their activities to turn ‘waste’ to cash to enhance their livelihoods.
But plastics in the oceans and rivers are impossible for collectors to reach, meaning they miss out on income. They also miss out on income when plastics are burned.
Elvis Oppong, president of the Plastic Waste Collectors Association, says only 20 per cent of plastic bottles and 70 per cent of water sachets are retrieved by the Association.
“Due to lack of space, the majority of the bottle plastics waste are burnt while others go into the marine bodies,” Oppong says.
Plastic waste is now a major global problem. A recent analysis by charity Tearfund found that plastic waste is spiraling out of control across Africa.
It predicts that Africans will discard 116 million tonnes of waste annually by 2060 – a six fold increase from 2019. This is driven by demand for plastic within sub-Saharan Africa.
Plastic waste destroys drainage systems and adds to air pollution but it also threatens food supplies. It has killed so much fish and sea life that many fisheries are on the brink of collapse.
The United Nation Environmental Programme estimates that Ghana’s contribution to global marine debris is as much as 260,000 metric tonnes every year, or one to three per cent of the global total.
UNESCO’s International Oceanography Commission pegs plastic and micro plastics in the ocean at about 50-75 trillion pieces.
The yearly economic costs of plastic in the ocean are estimated to be between $US6-19 billion globally.
A new pilot project launched here in Kpeshie seeks to help solve the problem. River recycle, a Finland-based organisation, is working to remove plastic waste from the world’s waterways while enabling the most affected communities to prosper in a circular economy.
In January 2022, the company and its partners – Beach Clean Up Ghana Limited and Ambitious Africa – began collecting plastic waste from the Kpeshie Lagoon.
The organisation created a ‘trash boom’ — a floating barge stretched across a river – to capture plastic waste as the currents take it downstream. The boom consists of floats made from standard plastic piping, attached to wire mesh barriers that resemble fencing.
The mesh barrier extends into the water to capture pieces of plastic floating below the surface. It is anchored by ropes to the bank of the river.
Mr John Adelegan, who leads the implementation, explains that every river is unique. The team must first gather information to specifically design the plastic recovery system for this river. There have been setbacks – the system was damaged by large floating logs and stumps – but the team redesigned it and has seen improved results.
The changes include the use of steel piles and concrete blocks to make the system more resistant to erosion, high-density polythylene pipe instead of polyvinyl chloride and a second floater to ensure float even if one floater is damaged,” Mr Adelegan explains.
For the first three months, the system collected 30 tonnes of low value (single use) plastics and polyethylene terephthalate (PET). The low value plastics are recycled into boards, which are used to produce furniture, a substitute for wood while the PET is shredded into flakes for export.
With a broad smile, MrAdelegan says already two leading beverage companies have placed orders to buy plastic boards for that.
Finding alternatives for discarded plastic is becoming crucial in countries like Ghana. A visit to communities like Kpong land fill site, Agbobloshie, Mamprobi, Kanashie, Dansoman, Adentan and Jamestown that are becoming overwhelmed with plastic waste makes it obvious how much of a burden it is becoming.
Experts in waste management and environment protection applaud recycling efforts such as the one in Kpeshie. Mr Henrique Pacini, Economic Affairs Officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, says embracing the concept of “circularity” – where resources, particularly plastics, are reused and recycled repeatedly – will help fast track development in lower income countries like Ghana.
According to Dr Henry K. Kokofu, Executive Director of the Environmental Protection Agency, the revised policy will focus on prevention and other innovative strategies, including issuing producers who package products in plastic with unique codes, which they will be required to retrieve or face sanctions.
DrKokufo rules out a total ban of single used plastics saying it will be too big a burden on Ghanaian companies and the economy.
The massive work of cleaning plastics from the ocean is not on the agenda for now but at least for people like Mavis and those living around the Kpeshie Lagoon River recyle’s efforts offer relief from the seasonal onslaught of plastic waste and a hope for a cleaner environment for her children. –GNA
THE typical itinerant salesman in Sikaman is a herbalist. He is normally a slim macho with the capacity to perambulate the expanse of area covering the triangle of Accra-Tema-Ashiaman. In short, he can walk a total of 60 miles a day, marketing a product that cures every disease, including poverty. 
The door-to-door herbal pharmacist advertises his product by word of mouth. He has nothing to do with the Food and Drugs Board (FDB). After all, his concoctions do not feature on FM stations.
Those herbalists who cannot walk to propagate the herbal gospel, liaise with drivers of mass transportation and their mates. They are, therefore, given the chance to sell their products on Benz buses that ply the routes.
Normally, the herbalist starts his sales message with a prayer and Bible study. He asks the passengers to bow down their heads in supplication to God the father, the son, the Holy Spirit.
When a herbalist asks the passengers to close their eyes and bow their heads, Moslems on board naturally feel offended. They feel that the herbalist has no right to assume that every passenger is a Christian. They think such an assumption is an affront to Islam.
So a Moslem on board will raise the hand for a point of order. He’ll remind the herbalist that it would be in his own interest to mind his language.
“Be careful the way you address people in a public place. Not every person here is a Christian,” he’d state assertively.
Of course, the herbalist will promptly ignore him, but would all the same “watch” his tongue. Who knows whether or not the Moslem brother is inspired by Quoranic zeal to defend the tenets of Islam to the hilt?
When he starts saying, “Wallahi!” and “Inshallah!” it could be the beginning of proclaiming Islam as supreme, a point which must be driven home with talibanic precision.
So the herbalist must tread carefully lest he steps on fire.
The herbalist could even add a measure of mirth to it all, by announcing that Christians on board today have very interesting company on the journey, but that should not detract from the business of the day.
The Moslem brother will weigh the words carefully and offer a wry smile.
He must be careful the occasion does not degenerate into the use of semantics and proverbial oration to deride his conviction that public utterances must be mindful of religious sensibilities. He has made his point very clear and expects that it is taken in good faith in the interest of a peaceful journey.
The herbalist will now open the New Testament and preach salvation, stating clearly that salvation can come only through Jesus Christ and NOBODY else.
The Moslem brother will now start twitching his moustache. The visible and almost revolutionary reflexes of his upper lip can be an indication that sentiments have begun superseding reason, and the outcome could well be tragic now shift uneasily in his seat.
The time has come for him to also express his right to the religion of his fore-bears. He’ll put his hand into his pocket and rise to his feet. The time has indeed come!
This article was first published on Saturday, September 9, 2006
When the cause of a particular problem like sickness, disease, sudden illness, a social issue etc. are not known, it stands to reason that resolving it becomes a huge challenge.
Citizens would understand the government when public announcements are made to the effect that government is trying to find a solution to the issue, even though it is taking a while for it to be resolved because citizens are rational beings.
On the other hand, if the solution to a particular issue is known to everybody but the government for whatever reason, is dragging its feet in resolving it, citizens become frustrated and begin to lose trust in their leaders.
One such issue is the heavy traffic along a section of the Kasoa – Odokor road. A short stretch of bad road between the traffic light at the Weija Government Hospital and the entrance to the entrance of the overhead that leads to the N1, is the cause of the problem but nothing is being done about it, day after day, week after week, month after month. Thus is clearly unacceptable.
Another issue that requires urgent attention is the lack of pavements along a lot of streets in parts of the various Municipal Assemblies. Exercise is a prerequisite for long life and healthy living and for those of us who it has become a way of life, this issue of people putting up structures right to the edge of the drains beside the roads, are making life difficult for us.
We are compelled to walk along the roads, putting our lives at serious risk. Pedestrians should never be compelled to compete with vehicles on our streets and roads. Roads and streets are made for vehicles and pavements are made for pedestrians. That is the norm. Any attempt to normalise a situation where pedestrians are mingling with vehicles is insanity.
It is the road regulations that makes it so and therefore district or municipal assemblies are to take responsibility and ensure that spaces for pavements are not encroached upon. Citizens have rights that must be protected by their leaders and making pavements available to pedestrians, is one of them.
When we hear of teachers having sex with students, it appears it is something recent. It is not a new phenomenon. It has been there since Adam. Perhaps this issue is getting much attention due to the proliferation of social media. It was an open secret in times past when Teachers were in relationships with female students and some married them immediately after completion of school.
Some teachers were also known to be having unholy interactions with female pupils but due to the times that these acts occurred, human rights issues and the awareness around it, allowed such unscrupulous teachers to get away with their crimes.
Now we are in a different era and so a Headmaster is now in hot waters. He is alleged to have raped about 19 female students and as usual, some officials tried to cover it up and are also in hot waters and their actions or inactions in the matter are under investigation.
Why the man has been allowed to roam freely without being arrested is simply mind boggling. It appears that the law applies differently, depending on who you are. This issue came to public attention sometime in August this year, yet the police had not arrested or invited this man for question regarding the rape allegation.
It has come out that he is a Constituency Secretary of the ruling party and the question in the public domain is that, is it because he is a political figure that is why he is still walking around without questioning? I believe in the rule of law so let us hold our breadth and let the proper thing be done.
The police must however be seen to be active in this matter. God bless.
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