Guinness Ghana Breweries Limited (GGBL) has called for deeper cross-sector collaboration between government, investors, researchers, non-for-profit organisations and the private sector to establish a strong plastic value chain.

The beverages giant added that government policy and investment into best fitting technology for our current market will be the best way to deal with the menace.

Speaking at a 3-day workshop put together by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) – GGBL and Impact Hub, Gabriel Opoku-Asare, Corporate Relations Director of GGBL, said, “as a business that upholds the purpose of celebrating life, every day everywhere, we continuously work to ensure our consumers get the best of our premium brands in convenient packaging. This also means ensuring that we follow strict guidelines on consumer health. We are guided by our 2020 Sustainability and Responsibility Targets which is further divided into 3 thematic areas, the first being our leadership in creating a more positive role for alcohol. The issue of plastic waste falls under the 2 other thematic areas of reducing our environmental impact and building thriving communities. We consider what will happen to our packaging after use, right from our design process as we strive to create closed-loop cycles. Hence our interest in working collaboratively for an end-to-end solution. Without this collaboration, not much can be achieved.”

Photo: Gabriel Opoku-Asare, Corporate Relations Director (far left) sharing Guinness Ghana’s views on the issue

The Ghana National Environmental Sanitation Strategy and Action Plan (2010) recognises that waste are not waste but materials in transition to becoming valuable resources for a second use. There have been several proposals and efforts directed at solving the problem of plastic waste and especially plastics waste burden in Accra, but the problem persists. 

Thus, the workshop was to facilitate understanding and communication between stakeholders involved in the plastic waste generation, collection and recycling, share research findings and identify what it will take to move forward.

Marc Lepage, Innovation Adviser for UNDP Africa also added, “Apart from the networking that we found important, we met with a diversity of people willing to apply a systematic approach to map out the value chain and the technologies available to deal with the plastic waste.The human-centered design approach also aided in collaborative work which we hope to see become fruitful moving forward.This is enough inspiration and impetus to seek potential support from all stakeholders beyond this workshop.”

At the end of the workshop, Initiatives towards a sustainable value chain for the plastic waste was agreed and action points to move forward were discussed to facilitate a test model for increased collaboration between government, the formal and informal sectors.