…1 million bins to be distributed to households
Zoomlion Ghana has delivered 500 new waste management trucks to Metropolitan Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDA’s) across the country in a response to government’s agenda of a good environmental health condition within cities.
It is projected that the move will create additional 300 direct jobs and 1,000 indirect jobs in various MMDA’s.
The trucks, however, are expected to go to the newly created 38 districts assemblies in addition to the existing fleet in the 216 districts.
It is also expected that one million waste bins will to be distributed to households across the country to sustain waste collection and management.
The company said, through its research department, it has collected data on all houses in the country and plans to digitize waste bins by placing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) stickers to ensure they are lifted every day.
‘’This will allow us to know where they are located so that those collecting the rubbish can easily identify and locate the bins,’’ he explained.
The Executive Chairman of Zoomlion Ghana, Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong, made this known last Friday, August, 31 in Accra during the presentation of the trucks.
‘’Our dreams of making our communities clean to a large extent also depends on our behavioral change, the tendency for us to dispose of waste indiscriminately and litter our environment itself compounds the efforts of city managers to manage the waste generated,’’ he stressed.
Dr. Agyepong said an e-waste processing plant, which is being built to serve as a recycling facility is currently 90 percent complete, along with two big transfer stations at Teshie and Achimota.
As part of research, he said Zoomlion has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with universities such as Harvard (United States) and premier universities in Ghana, University of Cape Coast (UCC) and Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).
The waste management company, in 2016, distributed some 400 waste trucks and 5,000 motorized tricycles to MMDA’s as part of its contribution which created some 10,000 jobs.
In all, some 200,000 jobs have been created through various modules under public-private partnership arrangements.
Hajia Halima Mahama, Minster for Local Government and Rural Development in her remarks said government’s agenda will clamor for more sanitation education and intensify support in terms of improving sanitation and hygienic options.
Michael Yaw Gyato, Deputy Minister for Sanitation and Water Resources, said his ministry will in the coming days come out with a clear road map on how to deal with sanitation across the country.
He called on various stakeholders in the industry to help bridge the gap between waste generation, collection and recycling through the use of human resource and technology.
By Mawuli Y. Ahorlumegah
