A pilot project to improve waste collection and management in the Okaikoi South sub-metro of Accra has been launched in Avenor.
Dubbed: "Pilot Door-to-Door Household Waste Collection", the project seeks to mobilize the youth into a group of eleven people collect refuse
from households to be discharged at a central container site manned by a member of the cooperative.
The pilot project, a collaboration between Zoomlion Ghana Limited, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA), Cooperative Housing Foundation (CHF) International Ghana and Nimba Community Support Services (Nimcoss) aims to improve general sanitation conditions of Avenor and the sub-metro.
CHF is providing financial and technical support to the project while Zoomlion is providing logistical support to start the project while Nimcoss monitor the general activities to ensure that the desired goals are realized.
Under the project, eight of the eleven members of the cooperative are provided with manual tricycles and two with motor tricycles to be used to collect household waste from within the sub-metro and possibly its environs at a fee.
The refuse collected is then discharged at a container site manned by the eleventh person, the skip manager, who would then arrange and pay for
the lifting and dumping of the refuse.
According to Mr. Yaw Duah,Project Manager of Nimcoss, the innovative thing about the arrangement is that throughout the process, Accra
Metropolitan Assembly would not incur any cost.
He said the if the project is successfully implemented, it would be scaled up to reduce considerably the financial burden of the Assembly since the contractors working in the area will funded for the cost of the collection and dumping of refuse.
He appealed to residents of Avenor to desist from dumping refuse into the Odaw drain since the practice compromised their own health and that of
Accra residents in general.
He announced that there were other youth related projects that Nimcoss will work on with residents, and called for their support and patience.
At the commissioning ceremony, the Assemblymember of the Gontein Electoral Area, Mr. Isaac Tetteh - Bosah, asked the selected youth work hard to secure a permanent lucrative job in the waste management industry.
He asked residents to adopt positive sanitation practices to make Avenor a better place for habitation.
Present at the ceremony were members of the Avenor Traditional Authority and the leadership of the Avenor Landlords Association.