Artisans advised to adopt strategies for reduction of waste

Kumasi, Dec 31, GNA - A businessman on Friday appealed to artisans in the wood industry to adopt more practical and genuine strategies that would enable them to reduce waste.

Reverend Togbe S.K. Fugah, a Patron of the Wood Workers Association of Ghana, said the artisans could do this by committing themselves to critical examination and re-designing of the products they turn out. This was contained in a New Year message he gave in Kumasi. He said the products, described as waste in the course of manufacture of products, and was quite alarming and that such waste could be used in the production of different items.

Rev. Togbe Fugah who is also President of the Tertiary Wood Products Association, appealed to customers, especially government departments, agencies and ministries to appreciate that all Ghanaian lumber were hard woods and therefore accept products made from any of such lumber.

He said the insistence of some customers on the use of specific lumber, particularly Odum, for the manufacture of products for them does not augur well for the conservation of the country's natural resources or that particular tree specie.

"All the lumber in Ghana are good and hard like Odum, sapele and the red woods, and can therefore be used for equally good designs and products", he said.

Rev. Togbe Fugah expressed concern about the fast depletion of the nation's forests and appealed to the Forestry Commission to involve all associations and groups in the wood industry in the forestation programme.

He said they should be identified and assisted not with funds but with land, logistics and technical advice.