EPA Says ‘Take-Back System’ Could Boost Recycling Of Plastic Waste
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has suggested that implementing a take-back system, where companies that supply their products in plastic containers can retrieve the packaging from the public after use, could ensure a higher percentage of the country's waste is recycled.
Currently, less than two percent of the country’s plastic waste is recycled.
According to the EPA, statistics also show there will be more plastic in the world's ocean than fish by 2050 if things remain the same.
The EPA has said such a scheme that allows manufacturers to take back their bottles and other packaging materials in order to dispose of them properly, will help boost the recycling rate.
Acting Executive Director of the EPA, John Pwamang who spoke on Citi Breakfast Show, ahead of World Environment Day tomorrow said the take-back system will allow all manufacturers to control how their products are disposed of after use.
“In that regulation, it is required that industries that produce beverages should set up a take-back system, the take-back system enables you to recall all the waste. Take back for all primary and secondary packaging. Primary and secondary packaging includes the bottles that the beverage is served and any other material used to in additional. You have to have a system that takes them back,” he said.
Pwamang is advising all industries to be more eager in working with the EPA to find ways in which they can contribute to recycling.
“You have to do a take back in such a way that recycling can go up to 10 percent this year and then to 15 percent next year,” he said.
In 2016 the Ministry of Environment, Science, Technology and Innovation (MESTI) held an inception technical workshop for the “Environmentally Sound Disposal and Recycling of E-waste in Ghana” Programme in Accra.
The Technical workshop was supported by the Deutsche Gesellschaft fur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH with an approved budget of 15 million Euro from the German Government to improve sustainable management and disposal of e-waste in the country.
In 2016 Voltic Ghana Limited , one of the largest producers of bottled water in the country launched the second phase of its PET plastic recycling project to help reduce the amount of scattered plastic waste in the environment.
The first phase of the project, which was launched in October last year, was to measure the feasibility of a large-scale community PET recycling project.
The project as at January 2016, had collected and recycled over 400 kilograms of PET waste and reached over 200 households.
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