Chief of the Adabraka Atukpai Stool, Nii Tetteh Adjabeng II, together with waste management company Jekora Ventures Limited and the National Commission for Civic Education held a sanitation durbar for the people of Adabraka on Friday, April 5.
The durbar, which was on the theme ‘Education on Enforcement and Compliance of Sanitation Bye-Laws’, was geared at informing the community people about sanitation offences and accompanying punishments.
The dream of the president, Nana Akufo-Addo, to see Accra adjudged the cleanest city in Africa has been lauded by many.
In Ghana, a number of metropolitans, municipals, and agencies have taken up the task to “brighten their little corners”.
Nii Tetteh Adjabeng II, whose jurisdiction falls under the newly demarcated Klottey Korle Municipal Assembly, is one of such.
He told Citi News that the idea was to deepen good sanitation practices in the area.
“The President has urged us to make Accra the cleanest city in Africa so upon that, I also took it upon myself to initiate a sanitation project to support our president’s vision. This project was launched last year. This year, we focused on public education because we created the refuse so we have to initiate an educational program to educate the residents. They created the refuse so they should be educated to know and refrain from dumping refuse haphazardly in the community, hence this project,” he said.
The sanitation durbar further sought to educate the gathering on the need to separate their waste at home.
Jekora Ventures Limited, the company solely responsible for the cleanliness of the Klottey Korle Municipal Assembly is set to begin to roll out its waste segregation project in households located within its operational areas.
The project, which began in 2012, is currently in existence at the corporate level and available to commercial entities but has been scaled down to accommodate the domestic waste created by households in the country.
Speaking to Citi News the Innovations Manager at Jekora Ventures Limited, Martha Adjoa Annan, explained the importance of separating waste at source.
“When these materials are collected from our clients, we have recycling plants – we have a paper and then a plastic recycling plant – where we do first stage processing of the plastic and paper, and then we have off-takers who come for it. We also have the organic part being sent to our composite facilities to be turned into manure. Now before segregation, all these materials would have been lumped up and sent to the landfill.”
“First of all, we don’t have land to serve as landfills due to urbanisation and so we’re reducing the waste that goes in there through segregation. Because if before you had 100% of waste going and now, 50% is diverted to recycling plants, it means that you’re just going to get 50% going to the landfill. So, you’re saving space [landfill space]; you’re also reducing the emission of greenhouse gases,” she said.
Jekora Ventures was recently adjudged the best performing waste management company for 2018 by the Accra Metropolitan Assembly.
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By: Akosua Ofewaa Opoku | citinewsroom.com | Ghana | opokuakosua18@gmail.com