Waste management issues in Ghana beg for Private, Public cooperation

Global Business

Waste is piling up in the urban centers of Ghana and the government is having to look at ways to improve on garbage collection and waste production.
Katerina Vittozzi explains how some companies are trying to help out as well.

Waste management issues in Ghana beg for Private, Public cooperation

Waste is piling up in the urban centers of Ghana and the government is having to look at ways to improve on garbage collection and waste production.

In the case of Trashy Bags, a social enterprise set up in Accra that reuses plastic container bags to make reusable sturdier bags, Ghana can benefit from government and private sector cooperation in cleaning up the country. The company has managed to recycle around 20 million plastic water sachets since 2007 and it has branched into other types of plastic recycling too.

Organic material, which makes up around half of all Accra’s waste, is stored in a huge compost building the size of a football stadium. It takes about 12 weeks for the organic waste to be turned into compost, which can be sold to farmers, agriculturalists or other sectors. The site is the only sorting and composting plant in the whole of West Africa.

The government has entered into partnerships with private businesses to install around a million rubbish bins across the country and roll out nationwide awareness campaigns on how to sort and recycle trash.