The pervasiveness of plastic pollution requires all hands on deck to make any meaningful impact. As a member of the Ghana Recycling Initiative by Private Enterprises (GRIPE) -- an industry-led coalition under the Association of Ghana Industries with a stake in the plastics sector to integrate sustainable waste management solutions – FanMilk Plc has been rallying its consumers to adopt sustainable waste disposal methods.

The company’s FanChoco School Caravan Wrapper Collection Promo, launched in partnership with the Ghana Education Service, sensitizes school children on healthy snacking, proper waste management and adherence to COVID-19 protocols. This year, it aimed at involving basic schools to partake in collecting wrappers of products belonging to the FanMilk Plc portfolio.

The Managing Director of FanMilk PLC, Ziobeieten Yeo emphasises that the company believes that, “the health of people and the health of the planet are interconnected and that each time we eat and drink, we vote for the world we want to live in”.

It is part of this vision that the FanChoco School Caravan was birthed. After running for a couple of weeks in basic schools across the nation, the promo recorded some staggering numbers which underline how successful the campaign has been and to some extent exactly how much more effort is needed collectively to deal with waste segregation.

This year, more than 100 basic schools took part in the campaign which has been running since 2018. The schools were drawn from the Greater Accra and Ashanti regions. Over 100,000 pupils took part in the collection, gathering more than 1.5 million wrappers.

This huge collection translates into over GH¢1.5million worth of FanMilk products – assuming a pack of the small yoghurt costs GH¢1.

Since its inception in 2018, more than 2.6 million wrappers have been collected via the FanChoco School Caravan which is more than half the number of people living in the Ashanti Region, the most populous region in Ghana.

The total number of wrappers collected since 2018 in the FanChoco School Caravan since its inception in 2018 is equal to collecting 1 wrapper each from almost 50% of the total number of households in Ghana – as the Ghana Statistical Service puts the total number of Households in the country at 5,467, 136.

To put the number of wrappers collected into perspective, if you collect five FanMilk product wrappers per day, it would take you 845 years to gather the total number of wrappers collected during the FanChoco School Caravan in 2021 (1 year = 365days and 1,543,023 wrappers were collected in 2021).

While these pupils put in the effort to ensure that they collect as many wrappers as possible, it was the bigger picture of saving the environment that has to be applauded. Addressing the problem of plastic waste requires the effort of everyone – young and old alike.

The top three winners of the promo collected nearly 50,000 wrappers within the specified period. Princess Johnson who is the school’s at Ashaiman No. 4 & 3, the ultimate winner of the campaign, collected 17,923 wrappers.

While Lawrence Ossom Nartey of Ashaiman SDA and Joseph Enchi, Manhean TMA, collected 17,348 and 14, 594 wrappers respectively – completing the top three winners.

These pupils within this short period taught us what a collective and purposeful action can do if we all join in curbing the issue of plastic pollution. We must, first of all, ensure that the plastic waste we generate is properly disposed of – and that’s where waste segregation comes in.

It is commendable that not only is FanMilk Plc, through this campaign, helping tackle plastic waste but has also provided a generous sum of GH¢200,000 which was spent on stationery, bins and other cash prizes to fund sustainable projects.

The wrapper collection promo, per the numbers, recorded, no doubt contributed immensely to addressing the plastic menace but also created the platform for FanMilk to demonstrate its commitment to developing children’s holistic education.