The Ghana Recycling Initiative by Private Enterprises (GRIPE) is celebrating five years of promoting sustainable plastic waste management in Ghana.

Activities lined up for the celebration will kickstart in the month of September, culminating in an official launch in the month of November 2022.

The celebration is designed to offer stakeholders an opportunity to appreciate the progress GRIPE has made over the past five years in the plastic ecosystem in Ghana.

Commenting on the anniversary, Dr Kwaku Afriyie, Minister of Environment, Science, Technology, and Innovation (MESTI) said, “The Ministry commends GRIPE’s genuine efforts to find tangible solutions to the plastic pollution crisis that has plagued Ghana for decades, and we accept your helping hand towards achieving the aim of the National Plastics Management Policy.

"This partnership brings a renewed focus and cohesion to the many existing policies and programmes within the public and private sectors to address the rapidly growing plastics pollution crisis in Ghana,”

“The Ministry stands ready to work with GRIPE to develop innovative business plans and models, whiles creating and supporting opportunities for greater efficiencies, and higher recovery”, he added.

Dr Francis Boateng Agyenim, Director, Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) - Institute of Industrial Research (IIR) - congratulated GRIPE saying “On your 5th anniversary, the board and staff of CSIR- IIR congratulate and wish you greater successes in the years to come. Ayekoo...Afi ooo...Afi”.

“The CSIR- GRIPE plastics recovery project in schools was launched in November 2021. Since its inception, the project has recovered 7.38 tons of plastic wastes which would have ended up in landfills., They were channelled to industry whilst schools make returns to sustain the infrastructure put in place by the project” he added.

Seth Twum-Akwaboah, Chief Executive Officer of the Association of Ghana Industries (AGI), the umbrella body under whose auspices GRIPE operates, has indicated that “The last five years have given us many reasons to celebrate.

"GRIPE is a private-sector group operating a voluntary Extended Producer Responsibility (vEPR) scheme to complement Government’s efforts in tackling the plastic waste menace.

"The progress we have seen today within the plastic value chain, such that businesses are now venturing into bottle-to-bottle rPET recycling in Ghana, is largely due to the advocacy and education by GRIPE.

"It is only by working in collaboration with the public and private sectors that we can win the fight against the plastic waste menace in Ghana”.

Activities lined up for the celebrations include campaigns designed to instil a waste segregation mentality in the youth, and clean-up exercises in partnership with the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources (MSWR), among others.