Company To Promote Plastic Recycling

Africa Institute Of Sanitation And Waste Management (K-Aiswam) of the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology has partnered Universal Plastic Products Recycling (UPPR), a private plastic recycling company, to promote plastic recycling awareness in Ghana. As part of the partnership, the Institute would use its expertise and its state-of-the-art teaching and research facilities to promote training and research that would provide new insights into locally-appropriate approaches to plastic waste recycling. In a release issued and copied to the Ghana News Agency the Institute said it would impress upon individuals, schools, government agencies and institutions to collect and store their plastic waste for sale at the Buy-Back-Centres which UPPR would be setting up all around the country. The Buy-Back-Centres, according to the Institute, will offer money for the collection of plastic waste and will serve as avenues for behavioral and attitudinal changes towards plastic waste in particular. �People will begin to appreciate the economic value in plastic waste and will have both reason and incentive to collect, store and sell the waste they generated. It will also serve as employment opportunities for many, especially the youth,� it added. Professor Ernest Yanful, Provost of the Institute, noted that Ghana was faced serious waste management crisis which needed urgent and innovative responses from all sectors. �Plastic waste has become pervasive; it is a social and ecological nuisance, and a real menace that is threatening not only our environment, but also public safety and public health. This initiative will not only improve sanitation in our communities it will also bring sanity to the economy,� he added. Dr. Bob Offei Manteaw, Director of Research, Innovation and Development of the Institute, indicated that the �current rainy season and associated floods recorded in some parts of Accra and elsewhere in the country provided ample evidence of the dangers of improper waste management. He explained that the indiscriminate disposal of waste ended up clogging waterways and that contributed to the kinds of disastrous floods which posed a threat to human health and ecosystems. �The Floods will become even more frequent and extreme due to current climate change projections and will likely also result in more disasters if the necessary steps are not taken to manage waste properly in our communities,� he added This initiative is a step towards helping to mitigate these challenges and to ensure improved sanitation in our communities. Through the collective efforts of the UPPR, a new awareness and understanding will be created so people begin to appreciate the value of waste while they adopt new attitudes and behaviors towards the handling of waste in both in households in communities. The new partnership, therefore, promised to help institutionalize a culture of value addition to waste while at the same time enhancing sanitation in our communities.