With Ghana's environmental ministry declaring war on the country's sanitation problems, a conference workshop waste management in Accra was given in late May, organized by ZoomLion Ghana Limited (ZGL) in collaboration with local as well as foreign universities and other institutions.
The program upgraded knowledge of about 50 participants in waste management, drawn from all the ten regions in the country. Among the topics treated were waste characteristics and management, waste recycling in Ghana, municipal waste management, waste management legislation in Ghana and global waste management generation patterns.
The conference also touched upon bioconversion, leachate treatment, landfill construction-Kumasi case study, introduction to petroleum and petroleum waste, waste streams in the petroleum industry, oil waste treatment and recycling and gas control and solid waste management in petroleum extraction.
According to the government's Minister of Local Government & Regional Development, Mr. Yieleh Chireh, a fundamental aspect of conventions's policy document is "the polluter pays principle" where the polluter is made to pay for environmental protection and remediation. "Those who are helping to create the problem should help to solve it," he noted. Mr. Yieleh Chireh cited electronic waste (e-waste) having a serious effect on the environment, especially water bodies near dump sites.
Mr. Frederick Rodriguez, who represented the Vice Chancellor of the University of Ghana, in his welcome address challenged the Ghanaian citizenry to attach importance to waste management issues bordering the country. According to him, the lifestyle of the Ghanaians towards the environment has not been encouraging and, therefore, called for attitudinal change to help avert the situation.
ZoomLion Ghana Limited general manager Florence Larbi promoted a waste management system that integrates waste management with environmental benefits, economic optimization and social acceptability, combining a range of treatment options including re-use, recycling, composting, biogasification, energy recovery and sanitary land filling.
The appropriate order of preference in the management hierarchy, she said, include waste avoidance, waste reduction, waste recycling, utilization and re-use, waste treatment and sanitary waste disposal.
Of course, these are exactly the principles put in place for more than for several decades under California integrated waste management.
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