Zoomlion Launches Recycling And Compost Plant

Zoomlion Ghana Limited has commissioned an ultra-modern Integrated Recycling and Compost Plant (IRECOP) to help recover waste materials that will serve as raw materials for industries.

Plant has an 80% waste recovery rate with the capacity to handle 800 tons of solid waste on a sixteen (16) hour shift.

Designed to additionally process about 200 tons of compost per day, the plants have the ability to recover waste materials that would have been landfilled, saving the environment from pollution and space needed to site new landfills.

The facility is also meant to address indiscriminate dumping of solid waste resulting in widespread pollution and its attendant health effects on humans across the country.

Speaking at the commissioning of the facility in Accra, Executive Chairman, Jospong Group of Companies Dr. Joseph Siaw Agyepong said plans are far advanced for the construction of similar plants in all sixteen regions of the country.

“As we interact, three consignments of the Integrated Waste Recycling and Composting Plant have arrived in the country. By the end of August 2019, the equipment will have been installed in Tamale, Kumasi and Takoradi. Zoomlion, I must emphasise, plans to install these waste processing facilities in all the 16 regions of Ghana.”

This project he said is part of the company’s response to supporting government’s social inclusion agenda of creating jobs for the teeming youth across the regions.

“For this project alone, 2000 direct and indirect jobs will be created along the value chain for both indigenes and other professionals. The Plant will also serve as a research and resource centre for students and lecturers in the universities and other tertiary institutions to raise awareness on modern trends towards a Green Environment” Dr. Siaw stated.

He said Zoomlion since its inception in 2006 has always considered waste as a resource that should be harnessed into re-useable products hence the establishment of the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP) which is the highest compost producing company in the country and the Kumasi Compost and Recycling Plant (KCARP) which is near completion.

Zoomlion’s Chief Executive said that the non-availability of landfill sites in the country coupled with its high cost of operation and a desire to realize the President’s vision of making Accra the Cleanest city in Africa pushed his company to invest in recycling plants insisting that “All these initiatives we are undertaking fall in line with government’s vision of making Accra and for that matter Ghana clean.”

Dr. Siaw stated among other things that the project also go to support the industrialization agenda of One-District-One Factory (1D1F) that aims at bringing development to the doorstep of the ordinary Ghanaian.

The Vice President, Dr. Mahamadu Bawumia in a speech read on his behalf by the Minister for Business Development, Mohammed Ibrahim Awal said it is a shared passion by the government to see a collective effort in improving the environmental cleanliness of the country by the end of 2020, indicating that it is heartwarming to know that the private sector through “this illustrious an enthusiastic entrepreneur Dr. Siaw Agyepong and his company Zoomlion Ghana Limited has taken up the challenge to support government in making this vision a reality.”

He disclosed that the plant would go a long way to support the government’s drive to promote agriculture through the planting for food and jobs and one district one factory programs as the 400 tons facility would recycle organic, plastic, and other waste into useable raw materials to feed the agriculture and other industries.

Dr. Bawumia stated that the plant would solve the threats posed by plastic filth to the environment which has engulfed the country over the years.

Greater Accra Regional Ishmael Ashitey, Professor Kwabena Frimpong Boateng, Minister for Science, Technology And Innovation and Patrick Yaw Boamah, Deputy Minister of Sanitation and Water Resources in separates speeches applauded the initiative by Dr. Siaw in assisting the president’s vision of making the country clean and creating job for the citizenry.

In Ghana, about 5 million tons of municipal solid waste is generated annually out of which about 60% is organic. The non-recyclable components of the waste generated in Ghana are about 20%, which means that 80% can be recovered and recycled.