RECYCLING OF PLASTICS WASTE IN GHANA; A WAY TO REDUCE ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS/POLLUTIONS, A RESEARCH PROJECT TOPIC ON INDUSTRIAL CHEMISTRY
ABSTRACT
Solid wastes management has become a major concern in most countries around the world and Ghana is no exception. The problem of solid wastes especially Plastic wastes in Ghana keep on increasing as the amount of plastic wastes generated in daily basis is very alarming and these plastic wastes litter the environment.
In Ghana, the populace has not appreciated the danger that plastic wastes have on the environment, animals and humans. They are not aware that plastic is not biodegradable and it takes very long years to degrade. As a result, plastic wastes make our environ-ment filthy, chokes our drainage systems (gutters) and breeding grounds for mosquitoes resulting in bad smell from choked gutters and diseases such as malaria and cholera from mosquitoes and flies respectively.
Landfilling of solid wastes which includes plastics is the common way of managing sol-id wastes in Ghana, which also comes with some problems in a long round. Although there are other ways of managing wastes but the only best, effective and economic way of managing plastic wastes by mechanical recycling. Using mechanical recycling to manage plastic wastes would create jobs for the people and provide raw materials for plastic manufacturing companies as recycled granules.
The information used in writing this thesis work was gathered through observation by the author and also from the textbooks and other sources in accomplishing the tasks. The recommendations from this thesis work would be helpful in management of plastic wastes in Ghana if implemented in the future.
  INTRODUCTION
The world has been facing the environmental waste problems and Ghana is no excep-tion.
Ghana also faces the problem of its own for the past years especially solid waste. For more than two decades, the amount of plastic waste littering the streets of Ghana has been a crucial environmental problem. There is no a proper way of collecting plastic waste and the people are not educated as to the problems of plastic waste.
Whenever anyone wants water to drink, they buy the sachet water, even for their homes. After they drink the water they drop the sachet in the streets from cars, buses and so on. The plastic waste dumped in the streets find their way in blocking drains, which can cause flooding and other plastic waste makes into the water bodies with unsightly tan-gles of plastic waste.
The plastic waste generated throughout the Ghana brings to the table how to effectively manage these plastic wastes to save the environment from its already existing problems. The problem of organic solid wastes management is not big issue as compare to plastic wastes since organic solid waste is biodegradable.
However, the non-biodegradable nature of plastic waste poses a big problem since the plastic waste can stay in the environment for a quiet period of time causing all sorts of problems.
