The Community Buy-Back program which was held in Nungua in the Greater Accra Region was organized by GRIPE – Ghana Recycling Initiative by Private Enterprises and its partners.
It is aimed at educating the public about the negative impacts of littering plastic and the need to segregate plastic waste for recycling purposes.
The program also demonstrates that plastic waste has economic value. They can be recycled into other products.
The buyback program is premised on the understanding that people can exchange plastic with cash. once people know that they can segregate and sell their post-consumer plastic waste for recycling purposes, they will cease littering and the as part of the Community Buy-Back Program GRIPE deems it great timing to name the October edition PINK EDITION to create Breast Cancer awareness and the need for regular checks to prevent it from degenerating and its attendant health implications.
Given that the companies that make up GRIPE – Coca-Cola, Voltic (GH) Dow Chemical West Africa Limited, Fan Milk Ghana Limited, Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited, Nestlé Ghana, PZ Cussons Ghana Limited, Unilever Ghana, Qaliplast Limited, KGM Industries and the Mohinani Group are involved in internal level of awareness creation for these issues, this program presents a unique opportunity to open to the community the chance to this worthy cause.
The Ghana Recycling Initiative by Private Enterprises (GRIPE) is an industry-led coalition formed under the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI) which seeks to integrate a sustainable waste management solution, advocate improved waste management practices, contribute to increased collection and recycling, and provide employment opportunities through scalable recycling solutions.
To reach a systemic change in the long-term, GRIPE’s action plan is focused on four streams: Data and research, Public advocacy, Solutions implementation, and Multi-stakeholder collaboration.
GRIPE believes every plastic has value and life beyond its initial use and should be collected and recycled into either a new package or another beneficial use. It is unacceptable that most post-consumer plastics end up in the wrong place, in our oceans and waterways or littering the communities where we work and live.
Since the inception of GRIPE in 2017, its members have engaged various stakeholders to create an ecosystem that drives collective sustainable action towards managing our post- consumer plastics.
The goal is to work together with other stakeholders to set up collection points in communities in line with the ambition of creating a Voluntary Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Scheme.
GRIPE is embarking on a roadmap with implementing partners to improve the plastic waste value chain in Ghana. This involves Segregation, Building of sorting centres, Identifying 2nd life solutions to close the loop, Researching into and encouraging behavioural change.