ISSN 2375-1266
African Journal of Environmental and Waste Management ISSN: 2167-0434 Vol. 2 (1), pp. 113-121, January, 2014. © International Scholars Journals
Full Length Research Paper
Waste to wealth potentials of municipal solid waste: A case study of Ga-East Municipal Assembly, Ghana
1Abiti Benedicta and 1*Pishva Davar
1*Graduate School of Asia Pacific Studies, Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University (APU), Oita, Japan.
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected] Tel. 81-977-78-1261
Accepted 27 December, 2013
Abstract
The purpose of this research was to investigate waste management practices in developed countries and come up with a set of practical recommendations on how to improve the waste management process of the Ga East Municipal Assembly (GEMA) of the Greater Accra region of Ghana. After exploratory investigation of how waste management is being sustainably practiced by some advanced nations, pertinent data were collected from administrative personnel and operatives of the “Abloradgei” dumpsite of GEMA using interview and observation. The result shows that 48.8% of the municipal solid waste is organic materials while the remaining 51.2% are inorganic materials such as plastics, metals, paper, glass, clothing and debris. The investigation further revealed that 63% of the collected municipal solid wastes are not sorted at their sources, that municipality depends solely on conventional land filling and there exists no modern treatment or resource recovery system in the municipality. In order to improve the alarming situation, the paper focused on ascertaining resources which could be recovered from the municipality waste, socio-economic benefits of waste-to-resource to the municipality and practical ways of achieving such benefits using lessons learned from developed countries.
Key words: Waste, by-product, zero waste, reduce, reuse, recycle, circular economy.