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30.11.2011 General News

Accra Compost Plant ready for use in January

By Stephen Odoi-Larbi - Ghanaian Chronicle
Composite of the Compost PlantComposite of the Compost Plant
30.11.2011 LISTEN

It is now clear that the problem about the    final disposal of waste confronting the   Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), and its sister assemblies in the Greater Accra Region, would in January 2012 be over with the coming into operation of the Accra Compost & Recycling Plant.

The facility, according to its initiators, is about 95% complete, and is expected to start operation in the second week of January, 2012, a date which coincides with the closure of the Sarbah Landfill site, the only dumping site currently in operation in the capital city.

Work left to be completed includes some minor electrical installations, and the construction of the internal road network.

The Coordinator of the facility, George Rockson, in an exclusive interview with The Chronicle, said those tasks were expected to be completed in the middle of December, 2011, and the first week of January 2012 respectively.

'We are on course. In fact, the plant itself is ready to be used, but due to the change in design of the internal road network, we had to postpone our operations to the second week of January, 2012,' Mr. Rockson said in a confident voice.

The facility, which was earlier scheduled to be completed some five months ago, had to be postponed to January, 2012, due to an increase in the cost of raw materials, coupled with the delay in the clearing of goods from the ports, as well as issues of design and capacity of the plant.

Waste management operators have, in the last decade, continued to practice controlled dumping in Accra, moving from one site to another in rapid succession, as these disposal sites have very short lifespans as a result of the volumes of waste disposed on a daily basis.

Due to the huge volumes of waste (between 1,500-2,000 tonnes) generated on a daily basis in the capital city, the Apenkwa, Mallam, Oblogo 1&2, Kwashiebu, Kokroko, Mallam SCC dumpsites had to shut down at an earlier date than was expected.

However, with the coming into operation of the US$25 million material-recovery facility, the headache of finding a lasting solution to the final disposal of waste collected in Accra and its surrounding environs would be over.

The facility has the capacity to pelletise recovered plastics to be sold to end-users for the manufacture of plastic items such as plastic chairs, carpets, bowls and many others. It is also expected to produce compost or organic fertiliser to feed local farmers to support the production of food for human consumption.

The plant would be able to process 300 tonnes of waste in an eight-hour shift, and will have a sorting and buy-back centre, where several people can be engaged in the recovery of useful materials to serve many other purposes.

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