Teshie: Coca-Cola marks 25th-commemoration with recyclables repurchase

Drink fabricating monster, Coca-Cola Bottling Company last Saturday directed a recyclable waste repurchase practice as a feature of exercises to check the 25th commemoration of its activity in the country.

The activity which was held at Teshie in the Ledzokuku Municipality in the Greater Accra Region framed piece of endeavors by Coca-Cola to decrease the quantity of plastics utilized in its tasks by 2030.

The organization, in 2018 vowed strong "World Without Waste" objectives to gather and reuse what could be compared to a jug or can for each one the organization sells by 2030, make 100 percent of bundling recyclable by 2025 and utilize 50% reused material in containers and jars by 2030.

Addressing the media uninvolved of the activity, the Corporate Affairs Director for the West African Countries Business Unit, Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Mr Bethel Yeboah said the organization had so far diminished the utilization of plastic by around 30%, while it had likewise gathered 100% of all sold and utilized plastics from the market.

Corporate Affairs Director for the West African Countries Business Unit, Equatorial Coca-Cola Bottling Company, Mr Bethel Yeboah

“I am happy to say that from Coca-Cola we have been able to reduce the number of plastics that we use in our packaging as much as about 30 per cent, the weight has been reduced by 17 per cent if you calculate,” he said.

Exercise

The exercise was organised in collaboration with the Ledzokuku Municipal Assembly (LEKMA) and SesA, a social enterprise, focused on reducing plastic pollution.

It saw the staff of Coca-Cola at the forefront of the exercise, going into the community to aid residents to collect plastics and cans.

Mr Yeboah called for attitudinal change among citizens to ensure that the plastic waste menace was addressed, adding that beverage producing companies must also make a conscious effort to reduce the number of plastics they use in production.

He also urged the government to set up waste segregation facilities in the various landfill sites to ensure that plastic wastes were properly separated to facilitate the recycling process.

Mr Christopher Gyan-Mensah, the Director of Operations SeSA, said his outfit, since January this year, had collected 132,626kg of plastic waste and 128kg of aluminium.

He bemoaned the inadequacy of recycling machines to process the large tons of waste, a situation he explained compelled them to export the waste, which affected their income due to the high shipping fee.

He appealed to the government to create a space where all collected plastic waste would be segregated and kept for recycling.

SeSA paid the residents GHS2 per kilogramme of cans, 50 pesewas for a kilogramme of PET bottles and GHS1 per kilogramme of plastic sachets.

Mr Yaw Adusei, Waste Management Officer at LEKMA, said the Municipality would continue to grapple with plastic waste despite authorities’ efforts to curb the trend.

He encouraged local area individuals to halt from tossing plastic squanders around and rather save them to trade them for cash.

A plastic waste picket, Julianna Cabo in a meeting with the Daily Graphic commended Coca Cola for assisting the inhabitants with freeing their local area of plastic waste.

She said as a Junior High School understudy, the financial award was a special reward that fills in as an impetus to deliberately freed Ledzokuku of plastic waste.