A facility purposed to recycle and dispose Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) in Accra in an environmentally sound manner and accrue income for the country will be completed by October 31, this year.
The facility is now about 65 per cent complete.
This was made known when the Minister of Environment, Science Technology and Innovation (MESTI), Dr Kwaku Afriyie toured the facility in Accra yesterday to ascertain the level of work done so far.
It is a 10-million euro project (first phase) under the Recycling and Disposal of WEEE in an Environmentally Sound Manner project and is funded by the German government.
It aimed at reducing the environmental impacts of electronic-waste recycling activities in the country, transitioning these wastes through proper and sound procedures, testing a pricing or financing mechanism as well as providing lessons to the national system led by the E-waste fund.
Stressing that the project would do the country a lot of good by accruing revenue, creating employment and averting health hazards, Dr Afriyie commended the technical team handling the project for the good work done so far.
He indicated that it was within the framework of a circular economy as people may think is a waste but in essence, a resource.
The minister noted that E-wastes were being dealt with first because of the hazards associated with some of the materials.
“Andof course, there are also high value materials in there, so if you recycle them, you generate employment and then the country would be better,” he added.
Nana B Danquah, Senior Project Manager, Memphis Metropolitan Limited stated that the project should have been completed this month but “due to the COVID-19 pandemic and other factors including the unavailability of materials and workers among others, it delayed.”
“We would be able to complete construction by October 31,” he added.
Mr Danquah explained that the facility which is sited on a three-acre-land would have a temporal storage, recycling centre, weighing bridge, guard house and transformer among others.
Mr Vincent NarteyKyere, Team Leader, MESTI E-waste Project Implementation Unit (PIU) explained that the project was focused on collecting, recycling and reselling of four types of E-wastes including “cables, mixed batteries, thermoplastics and the Cathode Ray Tube TVs.”
He underscored that the project is a three-year project which started in 2018 but had an extension of about one and half years of which the first phase is to be completed this year.
Mr Kyere said so far about 203 tonnes of E-waste materials have been collected.
“We also have tenders- Ghanaian companies who have expressed interest so we will be looking at that soon,” he added.
BY ABIGAIL ARTHUR
