By Albert Oppong-Ansah
Accra, Feb. 25, GNA-The Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) is urging companies to take steps to ensure that their waste, especially plastics are separated to help Ghana’s recycling agenda.
“One of the dominant materials in our waste is plastics. We are going to issue letters to companies to dedicate different containers for different types of waste.” Professor Nana Ama Browne Klutse, the Acting Chief Executive Officer of the EPA told the Ghana News Agency in Accra.
She said some companies had the capacity and were ready to recycle waste, explaining that, “It will be difficult for them because the waste is mostly mixed up at the household collection level”.
Prof. Klutse, said biodegradable waste could be recycled into manure, just as bottles, plastics and e-waste transformed into other products.
The EPA, she said, would have discussions with waste management companies to encourage more groups and individuals to support the collection of waste in the country to ensure efficiency.
“We see so much waste on the street which means there is a problem with the collection. It is overwhelming to see waste everywhere,” she said.
Prof. Klutse asked stakeholders in the production and use of plastics like the shopping malls to find alternatives to plastic packaging.
“Plastics especially single-used types will be banned in the country but as EPA we want to take it slow. It is a decision the whole world has taken and we need to comply,” she said.
The Acting CEO said the impact of plastic production and pollution on the triple planetary crisis of climate change, nature loss and pollution were catastrophe in the making.
She acknowledged that exposure to plastics could harm human health, potentially affecting fertility, hormonal, metabolic and neurological activity, and open burning of plastics contributes to air pollution.
Methane is the sector’s commonest greenhouse gas representing 47.4 per cent of the total emissions in the country, according to Ghana’s imaiden Biennial Transparency Report (BTR1) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The waste problem is more severe in urban areas than the rural areas, owing to high population, prevailing economic activities and consumption patterns.
New sprawling suburbs without road access, social infrastructure and waste collection services compound the situation.
Sanitation in most Ghanaian regional capitals exemplifies the problems of a dysfunctional waste management system.
GNA
