Zero Waste Accra Consultative Meeting with Waste Pickers and Collectors

In line with the President’s vision to make Accra the cleanest City in Africa, La Dade Kotopon Municipal Assembly have been working with Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) to implement the Zero Waste Accra Project which aims to work with the informal waste workers and SMES to divert #waste from landfills whiles providing #jobs for communities.

This partnership is geared towards developing a sound waste management strategy to institute Zero Waste practices across Municipalities in the country.

GAYO’s underlying motivation is to work directly with local communities to reduce the vulnerability of groups that are at risk to climate impacts such as children, youth and women, who have a comparatively less adaptive capacity due to social and structural inequalities.

The Zero Waste City/Accra Project has been inspired by GAYO’s Sustainable Community Project (SCP) which is being implemented in peri-urban areas across three MMDAs in Ghana, namely, the Adansi South District of Ghana.

The SCP is the first community-led circular economy project in Ghana which is creating a zero-waste model for solid waste management in peri-urban communities by converting waste into several useful products including, recycled products (raincoat, bags, aprons etc.), Compost fertilizer from organic waste and using agricultural waste to produce charcoal briquette amongst other items.

Through several partnerships with SMEs and local government offices, this project has created green jobs, built the capacity of informal waste pickers, and reduced waste from landfills.

Following the success of the Sustainable Community Project in peri-urban communities, the Zero Waste City/Accra project proposes to deliver a community -driven Zero Waste strategy that will drive waste from oceans and mangrove ecosystems to a material recovery facility and businesses for processing.

Additionally, the Zero Waste City Model will create a new green and blue circular economy for vulnerable people in the municipality by training existing SMEs to use municipal waste as raw materials to create useful products.

As a structure in the local system of Ghana, the project is in line with LaDMA’s commitment of enhancing the social-economic well being of the people through an effective and efficient delivery system.

As part of the zero waste strategy development process, the parties convened a consultative meeting with informal waste pickers within LaDMA and the Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA) to document the contributions of all relevant stakeholders.

This is to promote inclusive participation in the Accra Zero Waste city project with a bottom-up approach of model development. Key on the agenda for the day’s meeting was to understand how to co-create the needed components to achieve a Zero Waste city by working with waste collectors and pickers to support their work in the recovery of ‘valuable’ waste materials and for proper community sensitization.

The Accra Zero Waste Project focuses on the informal waste sector, therefore it seeks to strengthen the sector’s collaboration in ways that will promote local ownership and enhance informal sector access to wider benefits in the waste management sector.

With a signed Memorandum of Understanding between GAYO and the LaDMA, over the next 18 months, GAYO will work with LADMA to ensure a sound Solid waste Management Strategy for LaDMA is developed and put into practice.

Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO), is a youth-led gender-balanced organization that focuses on environmental sustainability and community development. Our thematic areas include, climate change, Disaster Risk Reduction and Circular Economy.

In our quest to achieve our vision, we research and provide solutions to pressing environmental issues through the establishment of community-based circular economy models which encompasses advocacy, stakeholders’ engagement, enterprise development and public education.

Source:GAYO

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