A letter to the Minister for Sanitation & Water Resources, Ghana

Dear Hon. Cecilia Abena Dapaah,

A lot of plastic bottles and sheets have taken over our streets, gutters, culverts, river & stream banks, market centers, dumping sites among others. The situation is not just ordinary anymore. Plastic mismanagement currently, is a serious biodiversity threat apart from the unappealing aesthetic menace it poses especially in our cities.

I am tempted to say, the number of plastics floating in our environment and streets unconcerned and unmanaged are more than 20x the population of Ghana. What it means is that if we should organize a plastic campaign with every 30M+ citizens picking plastics, one would have to pick more than 20 plastics before we can keep our streets and environment free of plastics. This is sad!

Dear Honorable, whiles others call it waste, I call these used plastics a huge mine of money and jobs. Ghana can make over a billion dollars from effective used plastic management. We can create thousands of community-based jobs from used plastics that we throw away for nothing. We can save our environment, health, water bodies, and others if we manage these plastics carefully.

Respectfully, Hon. Minister, yours is to lead. But to lead is broad. Assemble the best heads, the technical hands, and the business brains. The good news is that you don't have to look afar, a lot of well-to-do experts are here and ready to help. Yours is to resource, empower and motivate them and you will live one day to tell a great story.

The crisis ahead with the current poor management of plastics can't be played as the usual political game. It is a dangerous crisis.

Today in Ghana, it is very to difficult to walk an average distance of 10m without locating used plastics. That is the severity of the issue at hand.

But Madame Minister, in spite of all the threats, the good side of the coin is that we are sitting on huge economic potential with regard to used plastics.

Just imagine a deliberate effort to promote plastic recycling. Imagine plastic recycling investors being encouraged and motivated to buy used plastics from domestic users, street pickers and those from industrial sites.

Imagine these investors setting up district plastic banks where used plastics are sold and carted by vehicles to recycling sites. Imagine bottled water and soft drinks companies like Voltic, Twellium, Kasapreko, Coca-Cola, etc are empowered to set up recycling plants where a special tax rebate or incentive is given to them to buy used plastics from home and streets for reuse. I guess we can make some good progress.

Hon. Minister, instead of charging these manufacturers a 10 percent environment tax, cushion them with a relief package and make sure they conform to a policy direction of used plastic management and recycling. This will cut the import of plastic bottles and sheets for the packaging of various products. This will save Ghana millions of dollars annually.

Jobs shall be created and the living incomes of interested families shall be enhanced too. Above all, instead of the associated aesthetic and economic mess it pins on the country, our cities and environment especially shall begin to take back their glory.

Used plastics are only waste when we do not have any conscious plan to make the best out of them. The plastics we see in our streets today can help build a worthy nation. Used plastics are not waste, they are monies!!