Ghana’s stored wealth in urban garbage
A recent World Bank report on the state of municipal solid waste around the world predicted a sharp rise in the amount of garbage generated by urban residents from the current 1.3 billion to 2.2 billion tonnes per year by 2025. According to the report, the annual cost of solid waste management is projected to rise from the current $205 billion to $375 billion, with much of the increase is coming in rapidly from growing cities in developing countries.
Ghana is surely not exempt from the consolidated data on waste generation, collection, composition, and disposal.
The rapid growth in the country’s urban population calls for urgent attention in resource mobilization “to reduce, reuse, recycle, or recover as much waste as possible before burning it (and recovering the energy) or otherwise disposing of it”, as observed by Rachel Kyte, World Bank’s Vice President for Sustainable Development.