Chairman of Select Committee on Environment calls for new legislation for waste management

The Chairman of Parliament’s Select Committee on Environment, Yaw Frimpong Addo, has stressed the need to enforce new policies and reform existing legislation to strengthen Ghana’s waste management system.

He says this has become necessary due to challenges that have hindered the sector’s effectiveness, including insufficient supply of waste collection containers amongst others.

Currently, only about 10% of solid waste generated in the country are properly disposed of, with the rest ending up dispersed on streets, in drains, and streams, posing environmental and health risks.

Limited access to information on solid waste management and sanitation by citizens is also a major challenge, making many residents view waste management as the exclusive responsibility of local government.

According to the Chairman of the Environment Committee who is also the Member of Parliament for Manso Adubia in the Ashanti region, it has become imperative for Parliament to make new laws or reform existing ones to make Ghana’s waste management more viable.

Mr. Frimpong Addo made these remarks during a tour of Zoomlion Ghana Limited’s Integrated Waste Treatment facility in Kumasi, the Ashanti regional capital. The committee received a briefing on the facility’s operations and its contributions to Ghana’s environmental narrative.

After the committee’s tour of the facility and learning about its operations, the Chairman noted, “We’re discussing among ourselves that one of the recommendations from this meeting is to propose new laws.”

He emphasized that these laws would ensure waste segregation before disposal, addressing concerns raised by facility managers during the briefing for Members of Parliament.
“So, for example, this waste separation and all that was debugged by law, and any other thing that will enhance the refuse collection and how government can also take up some of the produce that you do here.

“It’s something that we are discussing and it will appear in our reports,” he stressed.

The Jospong Group of Companies Integrated Waste Treatment facility houses a composting plant, a fecal treatment plant and a medical waste treatment plant.

Highlighting on the benefits of these plants, the General Manager of Medical Waste Services Limited for Zoomlion, Ing. Senam Tengey, explained that the three different plants, aside from riding the environment of filth and enhancing health, aid in other domestic spheres for the citizenry.

The composting plant, known as the Kumasi Compost and Recycling Plant (KCARP) receives municipal solid waste from the various communities within the enclave, keenly amongst them being the Greater Kumasi Metropolis and its environs, and converts the organic components of the waste into compost, which is an organic fertilizer for use in the agricultural industry. The same plant also recovers recyclables and other materials that are converted into bins and other plastics for reuse.

The Wastewater Treatment Plant, which is also known as the fecal treatment plant, also receives fecal waste from the communities and treats it. From the treatment, the company is able to derive what is called a biochar (bio charcoal), as an end product which can be used for cooking. Also, the water from the fecal waste is treated to make it usable for other domestic purposes.

“So, it implies that the fecal waste which used to pollute our environment is now being used in a profitable manner,” said Tengey.

The Medical Waste Treatment Plant, on the other hand, he noted, deals with hazardous medical waste and make them harmless before their final disposal.

“We all know that waste generated from healthcare facilities are hazardous, therefore it needs to be treated before disposal, otherwise you have children playing with needles and syringes that have been used on HIV and Hepatitis B patients. Now this facility has been set up with ultramodern machines such as microwaves, which has integrated shredders in it. It’s able to destroy all the hazardous medical waste and make it harmless for final disposal,” he explained.

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