During her visit to Ghana, the Queen of Belgium, Her Royal Majesty Mathilde, visited the Sunflower School in Accra to acquaint herself with a waste management project being carried out in the school.

The project, dubbed: " Recycle UP Ghana," is being undertaken by the school in collaboration with Technology Without Borders Ghana, a non-governmental organisation (NGO).

The pupils and students of the school have been educated on ways to reduce the consumption of plastics and how to separate plastic waste.

The children are also working with the Recycle Up Ghana ambassadors and the creative arts teachers in the school to re-use water sachets and plastic bottles to make raincoats, necklaces, bracelets and flower pots.

According to the school authorities, the school can only recycle a small amount of the plastic waste, so the ambassadors usually coordinate with the recycling plants in Accra to give them the excess plastic waste collected by the children.

The pupils took Queen Mathilde through a practical demonstration on how plastic waste could be used to produce beads and other artifacts.

She also interacted with the students, school authorities and officials of the NGO.

Her Royal Majesty Mathilde said she was amazed with the pupils’ works.

“It is the kind of project that the Sustainable Development Goal encourages and supports,” she remarked.

She lauded the NGO and the school authorities for their initiative and urged them to extend the project to other schools across the country.

The Proprietor of Sunflower School, Mrs Laurice Yvone Ahiabor, expressed her gratitude to the Queen for the visit and said the school would continue to assist the schoolchildren to acquire skills right from the primary level, adding that this will enable them to come up with more innovations in future.

She said the “Sunflower School is developing the next generation of leaders to build the nation.”