The Minister of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, has paid a familiarisation visit to the Accra Composite Recycling Plant (ACARP), as part of his recent tours to recycling facilities in the country.
The visit was to afford the Minister the opportunity to get first-hand information on challenges confronting the industry for redress, as well as assess the performance of the facility which recycles chunks of waste in the capital.
He was accompanied by the Chief Executive Officer of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Dr Henry Kwabena Kokofu, and some directors of the Ministry.
ACARP is an integrated waste processing and recycling company established to receive and process solid and liquid waste to produce organic manure for aquaculture, construction, watering of plants, among other uses.
Dr Afriyie addressing newsmen said, the visit was to gather enough information from players in the recycling industry, on how the government could support them to become more vibrant in tackling the sanitation challenges confronting the country.
He said, such information would help the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation through the support of the Ministry of Local Government, Decentralisation and Rural Development, the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, as well as the Education Ministry, to come out with policies and programmes that would transform the operations of waste collectors in regards to waste managements.
He explained that, such policies and programmes, he believed would help Ghana become the beacon of waste management in the West African Sub-Region.
“This means that all waste generated such as aluminum cans, plastic and rubber are all recycled until the end of their usage before turning them into energy and other things.
“This will help the landfill sites to take many years before pilling-up. That is why the Ministry through its collaborators is taking steps to encourage waste collectors to collect anything such as plastic, flexible bags, sachet water among other to recycling facilities,” Dr Afriyie said.
The Executive Chairman of the Jospong Group of Companies, Dr Joseph SiawAgyepongsaid, the company by the end of 2022, would complete the installations of seven plants to build the capacity of ACARP.
He said, the company had plans of going into Refuse Derived Fuel (RDF) which is produced from combustible components that the industry refer to as Municipal Solid Waste.
He explained that, ACARP has partnered the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST), to ensure the production of the RDF, stressing “ones this is done, about 95 per cent of the waste coming to the facility will be recovered for recycled for reused.”
BY BERNARD BENGHAN
