Building upon our experience, Recycle Up! Ghana since 2019 has been operating the Nationwide Waste Education Campaign (NWEC). The project aims at cooperating with schools across the nation in order to provide environmental education to pupils and students to generally instill a culture of waste reduction, source segregation, and recycling among the Ghanaian youth. This is achieved through awareness creation campaigns, hands-on learning experiences, and the provision of robust facilities for source segregation of PET bottles and water sachets in schools. With the overarching goal of providing proper waste management model schools spread across plastic waste hotspots in the country, the project seeks to achieve a long-term inculcation of waste management into the Ghanaian educational curriculum. 

The implementation phase has seen the active involvement of highly motivated basic and Junior Secondary schools commit to the long-haul objectives of the project. Till date, the project has operated in schools in Accra, Cape Coast and Kumasi. In Kumasi, Accra and Cape Coast, more than 45,345people are directly affected by NWEC – 83,732 students and 1,795 teaching and non-teaching staff. A total of 12,397.5 kg of plastic waste (4,569kg sachets and 7,828.5kg bottles) have been collected from all the schools from November 2020 to September 2022. In Accra alone, 5,989 kg of plastics for recycling had been recovered as of September 2022. Statistically, this is in tandem with daily waste recovered from 64,998 people which otherwise would have been clogging agents for drainage systems (leading to frequent flooding), generators of harmful gases from burning, or proliferated components at landfill sites.

Among the list of participating schools are KUMASI; Martyrs of Uganda, St Louis Primary and JHS, Santasi MA, Opoku Ware JHS, KNUST Primary School, Ayeduase R/C JHS, M.A. Bediako Adventist Preparatory School, Armed Forces Senior High Technical School, Delta Academy, Yaa Achiaa M/A Primary school, CAPE COAST; ST Augustine School, Pere Planque School, Ola Girls School, Akwamu Basic D/A School- Gomoa Akwamu, Amamoma Presbyterian Model School, Dunwell Methodist JHS, St. Monica’s JHS, University Primary School, Aboom AME Zion C, ACCRA; Solid Rock Foundation, Dieudonne School, Tot to Teen, Gold Avenue School, Sunflower School, St Thomas Aquinas, Chrisbeat Solid Foundation, Pentecost Preparatory School, St. Gabriel’s Academy, Achimota School, and Others International School.

We expect that by the end of the 3-year implementation period we would have reached more than 81,000 students, 108 trained waste education ambassadors, 540 implemented education activities, distributed 810 dustbins, and 324 tons of plastic waste collected.

This project is expected to make significant inputs into the implementation of the National Plastic Management Policy formulated by Ghana’s Ministry for Environment, Sanitation, Technology and Innovation (MESTI), awaiting adoption as a working document in the country. Our Nationwide Waste Education Campaign (NWEC) is tailored to involve all relevant stakeholders both from the private and public sector, such as the Ministry of Education, to make this project an all-encompassing national initiative.