The government is set to construct new landfill facilities across the Greater Accra and Eastern regions to handle the capital’s escalating waste crisis, Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs Minister Mahama Ayariga has revealed.
The move comes as existing infrastructure struggles under intense pressure, forcing authorities to prepare for the immediate closure of major dumping grounds.
“We have plans to construct new landfill sites across the Greater Accra area and Eastern Region to accommodate the waste that is being generated,” Mr Ayariga stated.
A primary catalyst for the expansion is the critical state of the main facility in Kpone, which has reached maximum capacity and can no longer receive garbage.
“The Kpone landfill site, as you can see, is full. So we’re in the process of planning its decommissioning,” he added.
According to the Minister, a severe shortage of engineered waste sites locally left officials with little choice but to haul refuse from Agbogbloshie to alternative dumpsites further away.
However, the administration is shifting its long-term strategy towards modern processing technologies, aiming to treat garbage as an energy resource rather than an environmental burden.
“I agree with him that there are new ideas about how to manage waste such as incineration and the conversion of waste to energy through burning it and then using the heat to generate energy,” Mr Ayariga noted.
Confirming that high-level talks are already taking place to integrate incineration and waste-to-energy models into national policy, he said: “I have had those; even this morning I was in a meeting discussing how we should do that as a country.”
By: Rainbowradioonline.com/Ghana