Minister-designate for Environment, Science, and Technology, Dr Zanetor Agyeman-Rawlings, has called for the promotion of a culture of waste segregation at the household, school, and community levels to improve Ghana’s management of solid waste.

She said separating waste at the source would make it easier to determine how different forms of waste should be treated, while also supporting efforts to produce compost and promote recycling.

Dr Agyeman-Rawlings made the call when she appeared before Parliament’s Appointments Committee on Thursday, August 27, as part of her vetting.

She said waste management required a combination of proper disposal systems, public education, stronger enforcement, and innovative approaches to the treatment and reuse of waste.

“We need to also create a culture of segregation of waste in order to be able to know what's going where,” she said.

She explained that waste segregation should begin from the most basic units of society, including households, schools, and communities.

“If we're looking at the creation of compost, then from the household level, from the schools, from the very basic units of our communities, we should start the issue of segregation of waste,” she said.

Landfills

Dr Agyeman-Rawlings also called for greater attention to the design and management of landfills to prevent harmful substances from entering the soil and groundwater.

She said landfills must have a non-permeable base before waste is deposited to prevent leaching.

“One thing that ought to be done, and I would want to have greater insight into that, is that landfills must have a non-permeable base before items are dumped on it to prevent leaching into the soil and into the groundwater,” she said.

She described the measure as an absolute necessity and said existing practices at e-waste collection points could provide a basis for extending similar safeguards to other waste management facilities.

“This is something that has to be looked at as an absolute necessity. I do know that that is what's practiced at a collection point for the e-waste, but I believe it needs to be extended,” she said.

Alternative approaches to solid waste

Beyond conventional waste disposal, the Minister-designate said Ghana could explore alternative methods of handling solid waste, including technologies that could turn waste into energy and other useful products.

“There are countries that import solid waste in order to use for their thermal power generation,” she said.

She also proposed the use of pyrolysis technology to process plastic waste into useful products such as fuel and cooking gas.

“We can also look at pyrolysis of plastics, which can then be used to generate fuel and cooking gas,” she said.

Dr Agyeman-Rawlings added that some types of plastic could also be recycled into reusable materials, creating opportunities to reduce the volume of plastic waste while making productive use of discarded materials.

“Then there's also, obviously, the recycling of some kinds of plastic into reusable materials,” she said.

She said addressing Ghana’s waste management challenges would therefore require a broad approach rather than relying on a single solution.