Tema-Ghana, July 28, – Plastic waste pickers operating under the Pick-It-Project facility in Tema Newtown have, in eleven months, averagely collected over 330 metric tonnes of plastic waste from the community and its environs for recycling purposes.
The facility was founded by “Environment 360,” a non-governmental organization with funding from the International Climate Initiative IKI Small Grant project, is located at Tema Newtown, and has improved the livelihood of over 300 plastic waste pickers.
Ms. Rosemary Namirembe Abrahams-Mawuli, the Project Manager for Pick-It-Project, in Tema on the sidelines of a plastic demonstration exercise for pupils that on average the pickers were able to pick about 30 tonnes, adding that each month they record some increase.
Ms. Abrahams-Mawuli said even though the NGO would withdraw from the project in August, which marked a year of the operations of the centre, 30 leaders made up of 26 women and four men from the pickers had been properly trained to ensure the sustainability of the project.
She explained that the beneficiaries had been given training in the various processes of sorting and segregating the plastic after picking, flaking it in a machine, and using a plastic moulding machine to make beads, caps, wall decorations, and others with the waste.
She added that they have also been taught bookkeeping, negotiation, costing, and other important entrepreneurial skills to add value to the picking they do, empower them economically, and address stigma against plastic waste pickers.
She said apart from providing jobs for the women, plastic waste picking also helps address climate change issues and marine pollution, noting that most of the plastics collected were vomited from the sea as the pickers pick them from the coast when it rains.
She stated that to inculcate the habit of waste segregation and recycling, they have provided containers at the schools in town in which pupils are expected to put their plastic waste, after which the pickers collect and add it to the ones at the centre, which are sorted and sold to recycling companies.
Mrs. Cordie Aziz Nash, the Executive Director of Environment 360, said in a speech read on her behalf that the company’s pick-it-project and innovation hub sought to revolutionise the way communities look at circular economies, with a goal to make recycling accessible to increase employment opportunities as well as reduce waste in rural and urban communities.
Mrs. Nash said the project makes use of recycling technology from Europe that supports small-scale recycling, adding that by doing so, they empower people to recycle in their communities, resulting in the creation of sustainable and smart cities.
Ms. Susan Klugan, a waste picker, said that the project has helped reshape their work as they have been taken through training and provided with the skills of sorting the various plastics as well as using the machine to flake them ahead of recycling.
She said waste picking was a good job that provided them with the needed income and therefore urged community members not to stigmatize them but rather to help reduce plastic pollution in their environment and the sea.
Master James Lartey, a Junior High School form two pupil of the Assemblies of God School who participated in the recycling demonstration, expressed joy at the things he has been taught about climate change, pollution, and recycling and therefore encouraged children to help segregate waste from their homes and surroundings.
