From the customer-centric entrepreneur project
Every year, Ghanaians purchase millions and millions of beverages in plastic bottles. From the pure water bottles that quench our thirst on sweltering Accra afternoons to the soft drinks that grace our family gatherings, plastic has become an inescapable part of daily life. Yet what happens to these bottles after we have emptied them tells a troubling story about our country’s relationship with waste.
Walk through any neighbourhood in Ghana’s major cities and the evidence is everywhere: plastic bottles clogging our gutters, floating in our waterways, piling up in unauthorised dumps, and contributing to the flooding that plagues our communities during the rainy season. This is not just an eyesore or an inconvenience. It is a crisis that affects our health, our environment, our economy, and our future.
But what if this crisis could become an opportunity? What if the very bottles that choke our drains could instead power our industrial growth, create thousands of jobs, and position Ghana as a sustainability leader across West Africa?
The scale of the challenge
Ghana generates more than 90,000 tonnes of polyethylene terephthalate (PET) plastic waste annually. One report noted that PET bottle manufacturing in the country reaches 68,000 million tonnes annually. Currently, figures from the Ghana Plastic Manufacturers’ Association (GPMA) and other analyses for PET (Polyethylene terephthalate, the material used for most plastic bottles) suggest the recycling rate is around 9.5% to 10.26% of locally produced PET. The rest ends up in landfills, water bodies, or burned in open dumps, releasing toxic fumes into the air we breathe.
The environmental consequences are staggering. Our drainage systems, designed to handle rainwater, become overwhelmed by plastic debris. This blockage is a major contributor to the urban flooding that has displaced families, destroyed property, and claimed lives in cities like Accra, Kumasi, and Tema.
Our beaches, once pristine tourist attractions, are now littered with plastic waste that threatens marine life and drives away visitors. Our agricultural lands are contaminated with microplastics that may eventually find their way into the food we eat.
The economic toll is equally severe. Ghana spends millions of dollars annually on flood management and sanitation efforts, costs that could be dramatically reduced if we addressed plastic waste at its source. We also import significant quantities of virgin PET material for our manufacturing sector, sending foreign exchange out of the country when we could be producing recycled alternatives locally.
A vision for transformation
Now imagine a different future. A future where 900 million plastic bottles are collected from our streets, beaches, and communities each year and transformed into valuable raw materials. A future where waste pickers and collectors earn stable, dignified incomes instead of scraping by on the margins of the informal economy. A future where Ghanaian manufacturers have access to affordable, locally-produced recycled plastic, reducing their dependence on expensive imports.
This is not a fantasy. It’s the promise of a large-scale recycled PET (rPET) plant that could process 18,000 tonnes of plastic waste annually, nearly 20% of Ghana’s entire PET waste stream. Such a facility would represent a fundamental shift in how we think about waste, from viewing it as a problem to be managed to seeing it as a resource to be harnessed.
The concept is elegantly simple: collect used plastic bottles, clean and process them, and convert them back into high-quality pellets that can be used to manufacture new bottles, packaging materials, textiles, and other products. This is what’s known as a circular economy, where materials flow in continuous loops rather than following a linear path from production to disposal.
Environmental gains worth celebrating
The environmental benefits of this initiative would be immediate and measurable. Diverting 18,000 tonnes of PET waste from landfills and waterways means cleaner communities, unclogged drainage systems, and reduced flooding. It means less plastic pollution reaching our oceans and threatening the fish stocks that millions of Ghanaians depend on for protein and livelihoods.
But the environmental case goes beyond waste reduction. Producing recycled PET uses up to 70% less energy than manufacturing virgin PET from petroleum. This is according to INTCO, the high-tech, global manufacturer of recycled products.
This dramatic energy savings translates directly into reduced carbon emissions, between 27,000 and 45,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide avoided annually. To put that in context, it’s equivalent to taking 6,000 to 10,000 cars off Ghana’s roads every year.
At a time when Ghana has committed to ambitious climate targets under the Paris Agreement and our Nationally Determined Contributions, this kind of emissions reduction is not just beneficial—it is essential. It demonstrates that environmental sustainability and economic development aren’t competing priorities but complementary goals that can advance together.
The initiative would also support the government’s “Clean Ghana” campaign by providing a systematic solution to one of the most visible and persistent sanitation challenges facing our cities. Rather than simply cleaning up plastic waste periodically, we would be creating an economic incentive for its continuous collection and removal from the environment.
…to be continued on Wednesday
This is the first in a series of articles examining the potential of recycled PET (rPET) as a game-changer in Ghana’s approach to plastic waste management. Join us every Monday and Wednesday as we explore how Ghana can transform its plastic waste crisis into an economic opportunity.
