Community Waste Recycling Project(CWRP): Annual Update 2021

QUARTER-TWO(2)

The project seeks to educate, segregate, collect and recycle post-consumer plastic waste into useful products like school bags, phone cases, carabiners, furniture, building materials(bricks) etc. The project is four-fold and complements all of RUGs ongoing activities:

Education: Through our ongoing Nationwide Waste Education Campaign (NWEC) and clean up exercises, we educate schools and communities on the need to reduce, re-use, and recycle waste. Our ambassadorship program helps to empower women waste pickers and young people to become agents of change in their communities thereby championing the cause to make their communities clean.
Segregation & Collection: Using an incentive-based scheme, plastic buy-back centres will be established to help buy the plastic wastes generated in the communities in the Ashanti region. Also, 10 special waste bins will be deployed to SIX(6) schools in the Ashanti region to maximize the waste collection.
Transportation: The carefully sorted and collected waste from schools and community buy-back centres will be transported with the help of a tricycle to an aggregation site which will be located at our waste innovation centre for further processing and recycling.
Plastic Waste Innovation Center: What happens at the innovation centre is to use innovative ways of breathing a second life into the waste materials. The plastic waste will then be washed and sorted according to chemical properties, colour and other characteristics based on the final intended use. The innovation centre will be equipped with resources such as a shredder, extruder, injection machine, compression machine, sewing machine, computers, 3D printer, laser cutter and some power tools to enable our community to prototype and create several useful products from the waste materials. This essentially becomes a makerspace that complements the Recycle Up! Incubator program supports young Ghanaians to create businesses from waste thereby leading to a robust circular economy in Ghana.

IMPLEMENTATION PROCESSES:

CWRP Baseline Survey

The objective for the survey

In order to be able to select the desired communities for the project, it is important to know certain vital information such as the amount of waste being generated within our communities, the number of interested persons as well as the amount of the generated plastics recovered from these communities. This is why the project started with a baseline study of the potential project locations to gain valuable insights into their current situation and to design solutions that fit them.

Methodology

The chosen methodology for the baseline study involves the use of a survey with predefined questions to gather both qualitative and quantitative data for analysis.

Ten (10) field enumerators were contracted and trained prior to the field visit for the data collection. Each enumerator was provided with a tablet to be used for the data entry into a google form. In order to curb the challenge of tablets going off due to low battery or low network reception, printed versions of the survey were also made available to each enumerator as a backup. Data that were gathered offline via the printed questionnaires were then entered into the google form via the enumerators when they got back to the office.

Kumasi Airport
KNUST	Airport Roundabout	Ahodwo-TUC
Campus main	Kumasi airport	Ahodwo roundabout
Lecturers bungalow	Aboabo post office area	Kumasi Golf park
Bomso	DVLA – GWCL Area	Ratray park – Golden Tulip area
Ayigya – Tech junction	direction towards buokrom estate	Golden bean hotel area
Ayeduase	direction towards krofrom	Paraku estate
Kentinkrono – Gaza area	Manhyia Palace	TUC

Outcomes

The survey engaged seven (7) stakeholders involved in the community waste generation, collection as well as education. These stakeholders were Local government, Businesses, Institutions, Aggregators, Collectors and plastic producers.

Number of Responses
Stakeholders	KNUST	Kumasi Airport Roundabout	Ahodwo-TUC
Households	405	300	304
Local government	1	1	1
Businesses	9	9	9
Institutions	4	4	4
Aggregators	0	3	0
Collectors	4	4	0
Producers	4	4	4

From the responses, the amount of waste specifically plastic waste generated as well as the amount of plastic waste recovered in each of the communities were calculated. The amount of plastic waste generated was calculated based on the responses from the Businesses, Institutions and producers.

Community Entry Survey

On the 17th of August 2021, a visit to the community was made to further understand how the individual stakeholders in the selected areas manage their plastic waste as well as introduce the project to them. This was a two-day exercise.

Key Objectives:

Explore, identify and engage at least ten(10) potential drop off point owners for the allocation of bins
To introduce and sign up at least twenty (20) businesses and institutions unto the collection scheme
Engage and sign up local plastic waste collectors/pickers
Understand the communication channels in the various communities

During this survey, seventeen(17) stakeholders including, hotels, restaurants, Shopping malls, institutions and governmental bodies showed great interest in the project and sign up to provide their support.

Community Stakeholder Engagement

From the baseline survey conducted on the 9th of July 2021, the Ahodwo enclave emerged as the most suitable community to implement the community waste recycling project. This was due to the emerging need of the community for a recycling initiative. Implementing a project in a community is one thing, sustaining the project is another thing.

To sustain a project in a community, the individual stakeholders directly and indirectly involved in the project need to be engaged. With Recycle Up! Ghana, seeking to create a sustainable project that can run for a long to increase the impact in the community, organized a stakeholder meeting on the 3rd September 2021. This meeting aimed at :

Introducing the project to the relevant stakeholders
Outline the various roles of the individual stakeholders

The Executive Director of Recycle Up! Ghana introducing Recycle Up! Ghana to the community stakeholders

The twenty-seven(27) stakeholders present affirmed the results of the baseline survey conducted by Recycle Up! Ghana on the select communities and added that indeed the selected communities in the Sub-metro are battling with the issues of plastic waste. They showed massive interest in the project and promised to support it in any way possible to make its implementation successful and sustainable. As such, they assisted in identifying hotspot areas to mount plastic collection infrastructure.

The environmental department also promised to assist in the educational campaigns in the sub-metro

QUARTER-THREE(3)

Project Launch

Every project has a commencement and completion date and the Recycle Up! Ghana Community Waste Recycling Project is no exception. Plans and preparations have advanced to kick start the implementation of the project in the communities of Ahodwo-TUC, Atasemanso, Fankyenebra, Adiembra, and Santasi. The project seeks to segregate, collect and recycle plastic waste from these communities while educating the local population on its harmful effects and the benefits of recycling. In terms of education, the information centres serving as mini radio stations in the communities have been contracted to constantly play audio jingles(commercials) designed to educate the public on the need to reduce, reuse and recycle their plastic wastes. Also, plans have been made to extend the educational activities through the churches and the market centres. There are accommodations for clean up exercises and buyback programs. With the segregation and collection component of the project, ten(10) special metallic bins with a capacity to collect over 20kg of plastic waste each have been fabricated and well-branded to be placed at some selected vantage points in these communities.

Furthermore, five(5) temporal dropoff points have been mapped and established to be able to collect and store at least a ton every month before transporting them to the temporal storage facility for processing.

With the various components of the project ready, the official launch of the Recycle Up! Ghana Community waste recycling project occurred on the 30th September 2021 at the premises of the Nhyiaeso Sub-Metro Council.The event aimed to unveil and publicise the project to the selected community and marked the start of the plastic waste collection in the communities.

The event recorded fifty(50) participants representing;

The Environmental Health Office KMA
The Unit Committees of the various communities
The town council chairman persons of the various communities
The task force of KMA
The Media; Joy News and Luv FM
The Youth Employment Agency(YEA) in the Nhyiaeso Sub-Metro
The Assembly leaders of the various communities
The community local authorities(Chiefs)
Waste Collectors and Recyclers

With the emerging effect of plastic pollution causing flooding, diseases outbreak like malaria and cholera in these communities and the high rate of unemployment in the country as a whole, the project seeks to kill two birds with a stone by creating a solution to the plastic pollution and boosting employment for women and the youth at the same time.

The project seeks to achieve;

Collect and recycle up to 50 tons of plastic waste per month by May 2022
Educate 2000 Women and Youth in Plastic waste recycling by May 2022
Set up a plastic innovation centre for plastic waste recovery research by December 2021

Representatives from the traditional council of the Atasomanso community welcomed the project and officially launched it. They further advised the community to support the implementation of the project.

Reps from the traditional council of the Atasomanso community call for the support of the communities

The Chairman of Nhyiaeso sub-metro District Council of Kumasi Municipal Assembly (KMA) lauding the project

The Chairman of Nhyiaeso sub-metro District Council of Kumasi Municipal Assembly (KMA), Samuel Amankwah, closed the event by lauding the project and advising the project leaders to ensure its continuity.

He further added that “It’s welcome news if only they can deliver. Because there’ve been quite a number of NGOs who embarked on similar projects in the District but failed. “So, if we have a project like this in the community to be able to accommodate this plastic waste challenge, then I think it’s a laudable idea. “I’m hoping they help fight this issue of plastic wastes in the district,” he said.

The event recorded two media presence; JoyNews and Luv FM, to broadcast the event to the general populace of Ghana.

Collection & Education

The education campaign continued with Radio interviews. On the 21st of October, the team from Recycle Up! Ghana had a thirty (30) minutes discussion session on Orange FM to educate the public on the harmful effects of the irresponsible disposal of plastic waste and the need to reduce, reuse and recycle our plastic waste.

During the interview session, the team enlightened the public on the statistics of waste generation with a focus on the plastic composition in Kumasi and Ghana as a whole. Following that was the elaboration of the various causes of plastic pollution in the city with an emphasis on the behavioural attitude of the people in handling plastic waste. The current flooding situation in Kumasi set a perfect example to the public on the effects of plastic waste (bottles) choking drains and waterways.

The discussion climaxed with the introduction of a potential solution, the community waste recycling project.

The Recycle Up! Ghana team in the studio of Orange FM

Looking at intensifying the reach of the good message on the need to reduce, reuse and recycle our plastic waste, arrangements have been made to educate the community members through the churches in the communities. The first church education which will be held at the Church of God, Fankyenebra branch is set for 31st October 2021.

The next component of the project after education and enlightenment is segregation and collection. On the 1st of October 2021, the distribution and setting up of the bins commenced. Bins setup at ;

Melcom Ahodwo
Melcom Santasi
Ashanti Regional Coordinating Council
Royal Golf Park
Church of God- Fankyenebra
Ahodwo Malam Junction

Fourteen(14) dropoff points have been established in the communities of Santasi, Anyinam, Adiembra, Fankyenebra, Bantama and their surrounding communities. Waste collection from the communities commenced on the 8th of October 2021. Collections were made from drop off points, bins at vantage points, local waste pickers(collectors) and schools. Below is the metric of the collection;