Waste transfer station opened as AMA warns owners of illegal dumping sites

ZOOMPAK, a subsidiary of Jospong Group of Companies, in collaboration with the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) and the Environmental Service Providers Association (ESPA) yesterday commissioned a state-of-the-art solid waste transfer station at Achimota, Accra.

The commissioning of the Achimota station brings to three the total number of waste transfer stations in the country which have been constructed by Zoomlion Ghana Limited since 2014.

These are the Teshie, Kokomlemle and Achimota Waste Transfer Stations. The Achimota waste transfer station, which has a 2,000-tone transfer capacity daily, will reduce the total number of vehicular trips traveling to and from the disposing site.

Meanwhile, the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of AMA, Mohammed Adjei Sowah, who lauded the efforts of Zoompak in a keynote address, warned operators of illegal dumping sites to take systematic steps to shut these sites down.

“…waste collection vehicles and tricycle operators no longer have excuses to dump wastes at unauthorised sites.  Any operator found fly-tipping will be seriously dealt with according to the law,” he warned.

The Achimota waste transfer station, he stressed, has paved the way “for us the [AMA] to proceed in our next line of action which is to systematically close down and evacuate all unauthorised dumping sites in Accra.”

Operators of such sites, he further warned, must take steps to shut operations immediately to avoid prosecution. In the same vein, the mayor of Accra advised unauthorised tricycle operators to take steps to obtain the necessary licence to formalize their operations to avoid being prosecuted.

He seized the opportunity to also commend ESPA for their inputs in the building of the waste transfer station.

In his welcome address, Managing Director (MD) of Zoompak, Yuksel Unal, reiterated that the construction of the Achimota waste transfer station will go a long way to serve residents of Achimota and its environs in Accra.

He noted that the long hours spent in traffic to dispose waste at landfill sites which are located far from the city continue to hinder efforts by waste management companies to efficiently transport waste from point of generation to final disposal sites.

“The facility has three compaction trailers of which one can receive an average of 2,000 tons of waste, which means that each trailer can absorb about ten waste compaction trucks making about 100 waste trucks dumping at our facility in a day, he explained.

The impact of this challenge, according to him, has been glaring with spillover and unsanitary sites in parts of the city.

This environmentally friendly facility, Mr. Yuksel Unal, stressed will serve as a temporary site for municipal solid waste to improve collection of waste from households in Achimota and its surrounding communities.

According to him, the facility has a weighing bridge with an automated system to calculate the weight of waste dumped by each truck.

He asserted that, the odour from the plant is mitigated by the air tight and leakage proof nature of the transfer trailers, adding that the economic benefits of a waste transfer station are enormous.