Ghana needs to find economic value in waste rather than continually transporting it to landfill sites, former Accra Mayor Mohammed Nii Adjei Sowah says, arguing that stronger commercial incentives for recycling and recovery could ease pressure on the country’s limited disposal capacity.
Sowah said Ghana has failed to create sufficient economic value around plastic waste in particular, leaving large volumes of discarded material to enter the waste stream and ultimately require disposal.
His comments come as the economic cost of poor waste management continues to mount. A report by The High Street Journal showed that poor waste management costs Ghana more than GH¢6.2 billion annually through flood-related losses, healthcare expenditures and environmental degradation.
Ghana generates approximately 4,400 tonnes of solid waste daily, equivalent to about 1.6 million tonnes annually, while collection rates average 80%, according to the report.
“We have failed to find an economic value for the plastic waste,” and “We need to find a way also of creating an economic value for it,” he said. Sowah said in an interview on Channel One TV’s Face to Face programme with Umaru Sanda.
According to him, Ghana should develop mechanisms that make collecting and processing plastic waste financially worthwhile. Sowah’s comments come as Accra faces mounting pressure on its landfill capacity, with waste being transported to Adipa in the Eastern Region, a privately owned site operated by Zoomlion. He said the shortage of suitable landfill space in the capital reflects the rapid expansion of the city and the difficulty of securing land for properly engineered disposal facilities.
While landfill sites remain necessary because recycling and recovery will always leave some residual material requiring final disposal, Sowah said waste management should begin much earlier in the chain through transfer stations and sorting.
He cited the Achimota Transfer Station, which was completed during his tenure as mayor, and another facility he initiated, as examples of infrastructure that could help organise waste before it reaches landfill.
According to Sowah, larger transfer stations can receive hundreds of tonnes of waste and sort materials into different streams, allowing plastics and paper to be removed before the remaining residue is sent for final disposal.
“That takes about 800 tons of waste,” he said of the transfer-station model.
“And the idea is to have one transfer station in a much bigger community, so that that community, for instance, you have the whole of Achimoto, Tesano, Abbeka, you know, Jolo, that enclave. All the waste that collects from there should come to the transfer station.”
The economic case, he said, is already evident in materials that people routinely remove from waste because they have a market value.
“I always challenge people that, look, just check whether you can find metal waste in your waste. It’s not there,” Sowah said. “Exactly. Because you found an economic value for it.”
Organic waste, he added, provides another example of how commercial uses can keep material out of the municipal waste stream. Food residues, cassava peels and other organic materials are increasingly used as animal feed, while agricultural and market waste can potentially be converted into other productive uses.
“It’s not just a waste. We need to find a way of making good use of the waste,” he said.
Sowah also said properly engineered landfill facilities should capture methane and other gases generated during decomposition instead of allowing them to escape into the atmosphere.
“The gas can be used to generate electricity and some other things as well, because else the methane just goes into the air,” he said.
He said landfill management therefore needs to be viewed not simply as a disposal exercise but as part of a broader economic system involving sorting, recycling, energy recovery and the productive use of organic materials.
Sowah acknowledged that even an effective recycling system would leave some material that must ultimately be disposed of, making properly engineered landfill capacity necessary.
“But let’s come back to town and figure out what we’re doing,” he said, advocating transfer stations where waste can be sorted before being transported to final disposal sites.
Sowah also raised concerns about the movement of waste from the Kole Lagoon area, where dredged silt, plastics and other materials have accumulated. He said clearing the waste is important to prevent it from returning to the lagoon but urged authorities to be clear about the purpose and subsequent management of the cleared site.
He said landfill engineering should address not only leachate, flies and odour but also gas management.
“The major problem that we are finding is the plastic waste. That we have to find a solution for,” he said.
