Plastic waste recycling company Coliba Ghana Limited and bottled water producer Voltic on Saturday inaugurated a permanent plastic buy back centre at Mpoase, a suburb of Glefe in the Greater Accra Region.
The centre, which is the first of its kind, follows months of work by the two organisations in 17 coastal communities, collecting and buying back plastic waste from residents.
The centre would be manned by a permanent manager, who will be assisted by six additional workers to weigh and collect the plastics, which can be brought to the centre all year round. In places where there is sufficient t space, 40-foot containers will be placed to facilitate the collection of waste.
Unlike in previous exercises, the permanent buy back centre will not pay out cash to residents each time. Rather, they would be given membership cards as is currently being done at their collection centres at Fadama and Abeka.
The centre will also work with three schools in the community to ensure that the children who will be engaged in the collection of the plastic waste will not get money to spend frivolously. Rather, these monies will be channelled into the payment of their tuition and feeding fees.
Chief Executive Officer of Coliba, Prince Agbata explained that the rationale is not just to give money to these children, but their aim is to improve the lives of these children by ensuring that they can afford to stay in school, have full meals, help parents to buy food items, provide life insurance cover and give cash to the parents for the upkeep of their wards.
He also revealed that it is the aim of the two organisations to set up a community collection centre every month, with the rationale of collecting plastic bottles which are generally disregarded by individuals in the plastic collection business since these bottles are not seen as profitable. It is for this reason that Voltic and Coliba are setting up these centres.
Chief of Mpoase, Nii Obedeka II thanked Coliba and Voltic for setting up the centre in his jurisdiction. He thanked them for their work and for trying to clean up the Mpoase environment and also for their efforts in creating jobs in the plastic waste value chain in Mpoase.
There were solidarity messages from Fanmilk Ghana Limited and the United Nations Development Programme. They congratulated the two for establishing the centre.
Head of Public Affairs at Voltic Ghana, Joyce Ahiadorme explained to The Finder, “Our goal is that we want to create a world without waste. We want a world where after you are done with our products, we do not want to see our bottles on the street.
“Our business must sustain, and the environment is key for every business, for every living thing, and for every human. We are taking it upon ourselves to say that we are not just responsible for refreshing Ghanaians, but we are equally responsible for the post-consumer waste.
“For us, we want to be able to ensure that right from production our packaging are lighter, for which reason we’ve reduced the amount of plastic in the bottle. After the product is consumed, we want to ensure that it is equally managed out of the environment.
“We cannot just give the people refreshment and forget about where the plastic waste ends up. Our hope is that as we create a world without waste, none of our plastics will be found on the streets, in the gutters, in our oceans. It will find its way back into the circular economy.”
Source: Selorm GBORBIDZI,thefinderonline.com
