Trashes for cash - Innovative way of dealing with plastic waste

A social enterprise with interest in protecting the environment is making real cash from trashes. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare writes on how the innovative skills of the enterprise is endearing used sachet water bags and other plastic materials


On daily basis, over 60 self-motivated workers of the Trashy Bags Project, a social enterprise, often gather at the ground floor of a one storey building at Dzorwulo in Accra washing, disinfecting, drying and stitching flatten pieces of used sachet water bags and other plastic waste into nice bags for sale.

They have been doing that since 2008 and have so far collected and sewed over 30 million bags of sachet water into some 350 assorted types of shopping, travelling and school bags, laptop, ipad and tablet sleeves among others.

With 70 pieces of the plastic sachet water at hand, employees of the venture are able to make a shopping bag which, when not in use, could be folded into a lady’s purse. But when ready for shopping, the recycled material could carry as much as 20 kilos of materials.

The group’s source of motivation, according to the Director of Projects at Trashy Bags, Mr Elvis Aboluah, is their individual desire to clean the environment using an innovative strategy that returns some cash to the enterprise and those engaged in particular.

“We realised that it is not that simple telling people not to litter. But once they are made to understand that there is value in gathering plastics rather than throwing them around, then the tendency is that those people will stop littering.”

“That was the whole idea behind Trashy Bags Project,” Mr Aboluah, 36, told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in Accra.

And that has worked, thanks to the novelty of Mr Stuart Gold, a British volunteer who doubles as an advocate of the environment.

Prior to coming out with his Trashy Bags Project, Mr Gold was championing a climate change initiative titled ‘Stop Killing Us.’ The momentum on that project has since dropped as Mr Gold and his team shifts focus from educating people to preserve the environment to giving them an economic opportunity to gather plastic litter for cash or at best, stop littering.

The plastic menace

In the early 1990s through to the 2000s, many households that owed refrigerators in the country took to the bagging and selling of iced water in plain oblong plastics to its teeming fans nation-wide.

Although the idea made chilled water readily available to the low and middle income earners, it sparked an environmental problem nation-wide as most people often threw the plastics indiscriminately without regard to the fact that they take approximately 100 years to biodegrade.

Although many thought the phasing out of the iced water which was followed by the introduction of the 500 millilitre bagged water would help reduce the plastic mess, it has rather added on to the extent of complicating the problem.

Currently, Trashy Bags estimate that one out of every two Ghanaians take sachet water daily and that brings the estimated daily consumption of the product to 14 million. About 25 million people currently live in the country, according to the 2010 Population and Housing Census.

Thus, over 14 million pieces of sachet water bags find their way out daily, most of which are left in the open.

Although information on plastic waste recycling in the country is scanty, the Trashy Bags Project said about two per cent of the plastic consumed is recycled. “What happens to the remaining 98 per cent,” the enterprise asked on its website.

In an apparent response, Mr Aboluah said “that is why there is the need for a new mind set towards littering in this country. What most people do not know is that these plastics take more than 100 years to biodegrade, and by then, they would have caused a lot of harm to the environment,” he added.

Rescuing a million to produce millions

Although the raw material for Trashy Bags’ products is everywhere, getting them is challenging as most people shy from collecting or gathering plastic sachet bags. Many people are used to littering, a challenge the Trashy Bags Project is fighting to reduce.

The Project Director said his outfit currently pays GH¢0.70 for every kilo (120 pieces) of used plastic sachet water bags, an amount he said has motivated many people to pick and gather plastic waste for the enterprise.

“When we started, it was difficult getting the materials but that is no longer the case. We now get more than enough because, gradually, people are beginning to realise the economic value of used plastic sachet bags. So, instead of littering after use, they gather them. Some even bring them in trucks and that shows how people are adapting to our message,” Mr Aboluah said.

The project recently produced 1,000 bags, each made from 35 pieces of used 500 millilitre sachet water bags, for participants at the just ended West Africa Clean Energy and Environment (WACEE) Exhibition and Conference in Accra.

“That means about 35,000 plastic sachet water bags were collected from the system. Now, you can imagine what that means to the environment,” he said.

He added that his outfit was now aiming at producing one million of the purse-like shopping bags for retail in markets throughout the country.

“And if we succeed, then we would have collected over seven million plastic sachet water bags from the system and that is remarkable,” he noted. Each of those bags is produced from 70 pieces of the sachet.

The New product

In addition to rescuing plastic waste and turning them into lovely items, the Trashy Bags Project found a way of making good use of publicity fliers and billboard marts.

“If you go round the country, you realise that everybody is advertising. But when the advert is no longer in use, then the story ends there because the advertising agency as well as the company do not need the flier or mart and that creates another environmental problem,” said Mr Aboluah.

“So we thought of it and realised that we could make something nice from these stuffs,” he added.

He said the enterprise, as a result, has struck a deal with big corporate institutions and advertising agencies to supply them with used fliers to turn them into bags.

These bags, pretty and stylish in look, are proudly displayed at the group’s head office at Dzorwulo in Accra.

But unlike the plastic sachets, Mr Aboluah said Trashy Bags is not paying for the fliers and billboard marts because there is the tendency that people will go ripping off people’s banners just to make money.

The challenge

“For us, the focus is not about making a fortune but on making an impact on the environment,” Mr Aboluah said, disagreeing that his outfit was profiting from plastic trashes.

“Here, we do everything manually and that increases the cost yet we still keep our prices down,” he said, adding that “we are more of a social enterprise than a profit making institution.”

“As a result, we price our products low, knowing that the more people buy them, the more litter they take off the environment,” he said.

To the business community and general public, Mr Abluah said “it is okay to do business but when we do, please let’s remember the environment. After all, what kind of businesses will we be doing if we allow it to hurt the environment, the very place in which our products come from,” he asked.GB

Sachet water production - A thriving business with health implications

The sachet water business is growing in leaps and bounds but the issue of quality and regulation still remain unresolved. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare writes.

On a daily basis, 16-year-old Mary Azane criss-crosses vehicles, motorbikes and her colleague street hawkers and pedestrians on the Kwashieman stretch of the N1Highway in Accra, selling sachet water to a variety of road users.

She has been doing that for the past three years to cater for part of her expenses in school.

To Mary, a form two student of the St Luke Anglican Junior High School at Kwashieman, sachet water, popularly called pure water, has been a blessing.

“Because I sell it, I have been able to buy some books and dresses for myself and that reduces the burden on my parents,” she said.

Mary is one of the many young and grown up people across the country whom sachet water production has helped, by way of employment.

The sources of employment – the production, packaging, distribution, retailing and selling process – however hectic they might be, have helped cushion the burden of many while easing the rising unemployment burden on the country.

The water needs of many have also lessened.

Thanks to the 500 millilitre bagged sachet water, many people are now able to access and drink filtered and packaged water even in cars just by offering 10 Ghana pesewas in return for one.

The product has also grown many businesses and nurtured many more entrepreneurs, with some taking it as a stepping stone to venture into related areas such as commercial bottling and manufacturing of water dispensers for sale.

“Sachet water production is currently one of the biggest small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in the country,” Mr Kofi Essel, Head of Inspectorate Department at the Food and Drugs Board (FDB), said in an interview.

These notwithstanding, issues of consumer safety and disposal of the sachet after drinking still remain unresolved.

CONSUMER SAFETY

Ever since sachet water was innovated to replace iced water, which was then packaged in plain oblong plastics for sale, many people have rushed into its production and distribution.

Unfortunately however, majority of such people have little or no knowledge and experience in the production of water on commercial quantities.

"Sachet water production is becoming more of pensioners' job," Mr Essel told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS.

"You see, because the job requires simple equipment such as water filter machines and source of water, people think they can easily go into it but that shouldn't be the case. Sachet water production goes beyond that," he said.

Although all sachet water producers are, by law, required to obtain and constantly renew operational certificates from the Ghana Standards Authority (GSA) and the FDB, majority of them have not lived up to that expectation, making it difficult for the two institutions to determine the quality or otherwise of their products.

“They rather hide and produce. Some people have this habit of turning their boy’s quarters into sachet water production factories and are producing only in the night.”

“Now, tell me, how do you expect FDB to trace these people,” Mr Essel asked, wrinkling his eye browns in apparent disappointment.

The Head of the Public Relations Department at the GSA, Mr Kofi Amposah-Bediako, said in an interview that such goods are only seen “when they are brought to the market. When that happens, we confiscate and destroy the water,” he added.

In 2011 for instance, over 100 sachet water production factories were closed down by a team of FDB and GSA officials for operating illegally.

And many more could have followed if the two institutions continued with the exercise.

To Mr Amposah-Bediako, however, his outfit and the FDB are doing their best under the current circumstances. But more still needed to be done, he admitted.

THE GHANAIAN PROBLEM

A sizeable number of the sachet water brands in the country, especially those in the hinterlands, are produced, distributed and consumed on the blind side of the GSA and the FDB – the institutions mandated to protect consumers against shoddy goods.

Such brands are normally without the GSA and FDB labels. The said labels, consisting of numbers and symbols, are meant to show approval of the product in question by the two.

Three of those ‘illegally produced’ sachet waters were seen by this reporter at Kantamanto, a slum in Accra and Nsawam. Their sachets had neither FDB nor Standards Authority labels.

Attempts to trace the sources failed as there were no contact numbers on the respective sachets. The sellers could not also help matters. They only pointed to kiosks and stores retailing a variety of sachet water in bags.

“In cases like these, what can you do,” Mr Amposah-Bediako asked in apparent loss of hope.

“You see, people are just not cooperative. Most of these products are produced by people who are known in their communities yet nobody is ready to volunteer information on their actions,” he said.

Beyond the hide and seek that has characterised the production and distribution of the sachet water country-wide, both the FDB and GSA officials said people also needed to be more health conscious with regards to ‘pure water’ consumption.

“Ghanaians are not health conscious. If we were, we would have stopped drinking water that is not approved by the authority and if we do that, producers will have no option than to stop,” Mr Amposah-Bediako said.

THE CONSEQUENCES

Early last year, the country awoke to news of a cholera outbreak in the national capital, Accra. That was unprecedented, given that Ghana is thought to have come of age to be attacked by diseases emanating from improper hygienic conditions.

But it happened. As at the middle of 2012, the outbreak had spread nation-wide, claiming over 60 lives and threatening over 4,000 more people, according to reports from the Ghana Health Service at the time.

Many health officers, including the Public Health Director of the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), blamed the outbreak partly on the production and sale of pure water.

“Nobody knows how wholesome their source of water is. We don’t also know the health status of the producers and the sellers and that is a problem,” the Director, Dr Simpson Boateng, said in a recent interview.

The department sometimes undertakes unannounced visits to sachet water production sites and according to Dr Boateng, “there are interesting stories from such visits.”

“Some of these sachet waters are produced under very unhygienic conditions” he stressed, declining to give details.

He also faulted sachet water vendors, including hawkers like Mary, for helping spread unwholesome water that results in cholera outbreaks.

“The vendors expose the water to several unhygienic conditions. When they visit the toilet or urinal, do they wash their hands before using their bare hands to give the water to customers,” he asked.




Although Mary, the sachet water hawker at Kwashieman, said she washes her hands with soap and water after visiting the toilet and urinal, she failed to show where she stored the soap and water while she sold the water.

When pressed harder, she pointed to her house, about 100 meters from the street, as the place she washes her hands at.

BEST QUALITY CHECK

The FDB and the Standards Authority are overwhelmed as far as the regulation of sachet water production is concerned and their officials, Mr Essel and Amposah-Bediako admitted to that.

But while they struggle to bring sanity into the business, the two are also calling for a conscious effort from the populace towards their individual health needs.

“If you don’t patronise these sub-standard waters, they won’t produce again. In fact, the best quality check is boycott by consumers,” Mr Amposah-Bediako said.

Until that best quality check is implemented by all, many sub-standard sachet water factories will spring up and flourish to the detriment of people’s health.

This investigation was sponsored by Programme For African Investigation Reporting ( PAIR)

Border dispute doesn’t distract us – Kosmos

KOSMOS Energy Ghana says it is not distracted by the raging maritime border dispute between Ghana and neighbouring Cote d’Ivoire as it continues to develop some of its oil blocks in the disputed area.

The company said once the International Criminal Court (ICC) has not restrained Ghana and the oil exploration and production companies that she licensed from working on the area “then the place belongs to Ghana.”

The Communications Manager of Kosmos Ghana, Mrs Ruth Adashie, made these remarks in an interaction with some journalists in Accra.

Her interaction formed part of an oil, gas and mining (OGM) training programme for the journalists. The programme is an initiative of the Revenue Watch Institute (RWI) with Penplusbytes, an ICT journalism training institution, as the local partner.

Mrs Adashie said, the dispute “has not affected our work at all.”

If it had, she said “we would have laid down our tools and wait to see what government would say but that is not the case.

“Once the ICC has not put an injunction on Ghana, then what it means is that Ghana still owes that portion of the sea and we have no cause to worry,” she emphasised.

Cote d’Ivoire has been laying ownership claim to the billions of barrels of oil and cubic feet of gas reserves reportedly found in the deep waters near the coast of Ghana.

Although the border dispute had existed for a long time, it was reignited around 2010 – the year that Ghana made significant discoveries and also commenced commercial production of oil and gas within the disputed area and Jubilee Field respectively.

Seismic data from the Ghana National petroleum Corporation (GNPC), the regulator of the country’s upstream petroleum sector, currently show that the disputed area covers portions of the Jubilee Field, Tweneboa, Enyenra, the Owo discoveries, West Tano-1X find and the Deep water Tano Block, all found in the west coast of Ghana’s territorial waters.

GNPC had already allocated some of those blocks to some oil companies, including Kosmos, to explore and develop for commercial oil production.

Kosmos Energy’s largest stake in the country, the deep water Tano discovery, is located in the disputed area, according to Mrs Adashie.

Thus, with Cote d’Ivoire still pushing its ownership claim, indications were that oil exploration and production companies such as Kosmos that have blocks within the disputed area would be distracted from continuing to work on their blocks.

That is, however, not the case with Kosmos, said the company’s Communications Manager.

“To us at Kosmos, it is work as usual,” she said but admitted that it was the Ghana government that could say otherwise.

“Once government has not said anything, then we believe that the area is for Ghana,” she said.

Touching on the Jubilee Field where Kosmos is a partner, Mrs Adashie said her outfit was confident daily output would climb further after moving from 60,000 barrels per day (bpd) earlier this year to currently average at 83,000bpd.

Kosmos, she said was, however, not happy with the wide media publicity devoted to Tullow, the operator, on issues concerning the field.

“Tullow has been taking all the glory and the other partners are left in the dark,” she bemoaned, noting that “all we ask of is equal publicity be given to all of us.”  

'If I die, I die for gold, says galamsey operator

The risk of being killed by a collapsing pit is not enough to scare off James Yemouk alias Boutique from hunting for gold at Gbane in the Upper East region. Once he is alive and energetic, Boutique says his search for gold must continue. Maxwell Adombila Akalaare looks at his daily itinerary as a miner 

It has been more than five years now since 30-year-old James Yemouk alias Boutique fell in love with his current profession of skimming for gold in the belly of the earth at Gbane, a farming community in the newly created Talensi District in the Upper East region.

Although Boutique can attempt quantifying the value of his more than five-year toil beneath and on the earth, he told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS that he has lost count of the number of people who died in his presence while chasing gold underground.

Death, he said no longer scares him and his colleagues engaged in galamsey activities at Obuasi, one of the mining sites in the Gbane community.

“A lot of our colleagues have died from collapsing pits here. I cannot tell the number but I know that death is now normal to all of us here,” he said in Taleng, the dialect of the Talensi people.

Boutique 'washing' crashed rocks for gold debris at the site

“We sometimes pull the dead aside and continue the work because the work itself is a ‘do and die affair,” Boutique added.

LEARNING THE TRICKS

Boutique is one of the young energetic folks from the district and beyond who have taken to the pursuit for gold using man-powered tools. Their areas of operation are normally within some gold reserve sites mostly found in low lying areas across the Talensi District, the region and the entire country.

There, the methods used in extracting the gold plated rocks from about 85 meters down the earth are rudimentary and man powered.

Except the underground drenching and blasting of hard rocks where diesel powered drenchers and blasters are sparsely used, Boutique said everything from digging on the surface to breaking hard rocks at about 60-85 meters down the earth is done using a pick axe, shovel, chisel, hammer and moil – a man-powered drill.

Given the destructive nature of their practice on the environment, the concessions of large scale miners and on their lives, various personalities and institutions have for long mounted pressure against them and their galamsey activities.

Less success has, however, been achieved as the practice continuous to rise.

Although dozens of Boutique’s colleagues have died attempting to scoop gold from the earth, nothing shows that the spate of illegal small scale mining, popularly referred to as ‘galamsey’, will ease soon.

The Ghana National Association of Small Scale Miners (GNASSM), the umbrella body of licenced small scale miners once galamsey operators, currently boasts of over 8,000 members nation-wide. The association’s General Secretary, Mr Oliver Rivers, recently told the GRAPHIC BUSINESS in Accra that there are twice as many of its members presently engaged in illegal mining nation-wide.

A lin-up of basins of crashed gold-plated rocks ready for grinding 

More people are joining than exiting the job at Gbane, said Boutique who spends his day plotting strategies to use in scooping gold underground.

“When I first came here some five years ago, less people engaged in this activity. But now, the number is increasing and almost every young person wants to mine for gold. That is obvious because the prospects are good,” he said.

Recounting his first days in the business to the GRAPHIC BUSINESS at the site, Boutique who is married and a father of two, said “going down to mine for gold is like boarding a plane at first.

“It is scary at first, very dark and the temperature, abnormal. You often wonder if you will be able to come out again but once you return to earth from your first trip down, then you heave a sigh of relief and yearn to go down again.

“After two or more successful attempts, then everything become normal to you such that you even wish to be doing it more often,” he said smiling. 

REAPING THE GAINS  

According to Boutique, a daily hustle at the site can return “more than GHC1,500.

“You can also labour for nothing such that you will have to borrow to eat that day,” he added.

On the benefits of his job, Boutique said “because of the work, I have money and can eat whatever dish I desire.

“Whenever I get to the house, my children and siblings run to me and I am able to give them money for their school items and upkeep. That alone gladdens my heart,” he said soberly.

Thanks to his bravery and skill to descend crudely dug mine pits, Boutique added that he has been able to build and roof six mud houses for himself and his extended family.

In most parts of the Talensi District and other communities in the region, a zinc roofed house is an asset cherished by all, especially the young uneducated. Mud houses roofed by thatch are considered colonial and thus despised.

DYING FOR GOLD

Although Boutique admits the risks in his profession, he said he is not willing to stop as long as he is energetic.

At the site, energy is of essence as much of the job is manpowered. The guys there were tough in body and openly displayed their muscular shoulders and chests

On the issue of death, Boutique said “this is my job from which I eat.

“If I refuse to work, I will have to go begging and that is not good for a young man like me,” he added and disagreed that his previous job of carrying loads for people in return for money popularly known as ‘kayayei’ was better than the current.

“There is no money in kayayei yet people use to despise us a lot.

“Here, just 0.8 grams of the ore fetches about GHC60 to GHC80. That is a lot of money and could have been my one or two month’s earnings as a Kayayei person down south.

“The only thing with this job (galamsey) is the fear of being killed or injured but that is okay because if I die, I die looking for money which is the gold,” Boutique said laughing.

PREPARING FOR RETIREMENT

However prosperous the illegal gold mine business is, Boutique said he would not allow his children into it given the need to educate them.

“It is risky and unwise. People have been cheating me because of my illiteracy. I do not want that to happen to my children again,” he said.

Boutique also admitted that he would one day have to retire from the work as his energy cannot carry-on forever.

But before doing that he said he would have to find a permanent source of living for himself and his family of eight of which he is the bread winner.

Although Boutique admitted the need to regularise galamsey operations in the district, he said his current financial stand was not strong enough to start a joint process towards owing a concession.

He thus appealed to the government and other interested parties to help them with capital and implements as “most of us have fallen in love with the job.

“We do it with our hearts and if they help us, the business will improve and we will be able to mine more gold for the country,” he added.

Boutique is his 'off duty' mode

On his nickname, he said “it is because I only wear dresses bought from the boutique that is how come my friends call me Boutique.”