Ghanaians urged to segregate waste, support sanitation levy

Managers of liquid waste in Accra have appealed to the public not to contaminate their liquid waste with solid ones since waste managers incur huge costs to carry out waste segregation.

Eric Simon Amofa-Sarkodie, the head of processing and engineering services at Sewerage Systems Ghana Limited, the operator of Mudor faecal treatment plant and Lavender Hill landfill site, made the call when members of the Parliamentary Press Corps toured some waste management facilities owned by the Jospong Group of Companies.

The Lavender Hill facility generates by-products such as biogas and solid products used for producing organic manure and charcoal, while the water is treated for reuse or flushed into the Korle Lagoon.

The press corps also visited Zoompak, a medical waste treatment facility at Teshie-Nungua which is a partnership between Zoomlion and a Turkish waste company.

The Chief Executive Officer of Zoompak, Durmus Findkci, said the facility is one of its kind in Africa and called on the government to give it maximum support.

He also appealed to the government to institute control measures on medical waste management because of its sensitivity, as improper collection and disposal of such waste can spark a major health disaster in the country.

“Zoompak is equipped to get rid of medical waste under hygienic conditions. The Ministry of Health must control all the processes of the sector and also support the investors in terms of funding, as the cost of operating the facility is currently borne by the investors,” he stated.

At the Integrated Recycling and Compost Plant (IRECOP), General Manager of the facility, Betty Brown Nyadu, stated that over 60 percent of waste segregated at the 400-tonne facility is organic in nature.

The waste segregated at the facility is recycled for conversion into by-products such as organic fertilizer and plastic pellets.

Simon Agianab, the dean of the Parliamentary Press Corps, appealed to Ghanaians to embrace the 10-pesewa sanitation levy on petroleum products since it will help solve the sanitation challenges confronting the country.

He urged citizens not to regard the sanitation levy as a nuisance levy but one that has the potential to change the face of sanitation in the country if embraced by all.

The levy, he noted, will provide a dedicated and reliable funding source to address sanitation issues in the country.

The tour formed part of a learning process to expose the press corps to the challenges of waste management in the country.

Government in the 2021 budget statement proposed the imposition of a 10-pesewa Sanitation and Pollution Levy (SPL) on fuel prices. This has generated lots of criticism from the public, with some describing the levy as a nuisance tax.

Sector players such as ESPA, SSGL and CONIWAS, however, welcomed the tax as a lifesaver for the sanitation sector.

According to the sanitation service providers, the levy could provide a dedicated fund for waste management which is currently non-existent. They argued that a dedicated fund for the sector means service providers would be paid on time and fully to enable them maintain their services.