Waste management professionals, Jekora Ventures have said Ghana has the potential to venture into uncontaminated waste export.
The initiative, though expensive, could serve as the catalyst to economic development and employment generation across the country.
“There are high prospects in that business though the process of treating waste into exportable product is very expensive,” Mr. Immanuel Nartey-Tokoli, MD of Jekora Ventures told the Goldstreet Business during a presentation of 90 waste bins to the Accra Metropolitan Assembly, under the auspices of the One Ghana Movement, an NGO.
The EU waste shipment regulations stipulates that, all exported waste to Europe must comply with import controls of the various European states where competent authorities agree or disagree on whether a material should be classed as waste.
“The whole process is involving as waste exporters to Europe must first know if the material to be exported is classed as waste by any country involved in the journey. If so, then the waste shipment controls apply to the whole journey and that is when challenges may arrive,” Immanuel Nartey-Tokoli explained.
Current reports indicate that all major landfill sites in Accra are getting choked of waste where it is expected that all such sites, particularly in the Greater Accra Region, will be out of operation in the next two years.
However, Nartey-Tokoli said the situation presents a good opportunity for Ghana to consider investing into treating and exporting waste to Europe and other countries.
“We can export a lot of waste from here. Paper, plastic, glass, and other materials, the behaviour of segregating waste must be paramount so that the whole process begins from there,” he said.
Ghana has been very slow in plastic recycling. Out of the estimated 22,000 tonnes of plastic waste generated annually in the country, only two percent is recycled with the rest finding its way to landfill sites by waste management companies, while others land in water bodies.
By Wisdom Jonny-Nuekpe
