The production and disposal of waste single-use plastic products (e.g., sachets, bottles and polybags) contribute significantly to environmental pollution. Single-use plastic waste is the major constituent of industrial and municipal waste in cities after food and paper waste. This growing threat posed by plastic pollution is being felt all around the world. It is estimated in Ghana that; the manufacturing sector uses about 2.6 million metric tonnes of raw plastics annually leading to well over one (1) million tonnes of annual plastics waste generation. However, approximately 9.5% of that is collected for recycling. The rest end on landfill, sea, land or burned. It is for this reason that this Project, “Debris-In-Energy-Out: Adding Value to Single Use Plastic Waste in Ghana”, seeks to remediate the menace of plastic waste by reprocessing them into high value fuels and chemicals for households or small running engines. The project utilizes a circular catalytic pyrolysis technology in the production of liquid and gaseous fuels from waste plastic samples in a semi-laboratory batch reactor system. This technology can be extended to precursors for Biomass valorization of agriculture waste, waste water treatment, sustainable construction materials, catalysts production, E-waste valorization and metal retrieval, energy storage and production applications, in line with the UN SDGs. The project team comprises students and researchers from the Department of Materials Science & Engineering, Department of Marine & Fisheries Sciences, Institute for Environmental & Sanitation Studies, Dept. of Operations & Management Information Systems (University of Ghana Business School), Technology Consultancy Centre of KNUST and CNRS RAPSODEE Centre; IMT Ecole des Mines d'Albi-Carmaux, France. This plastics to fuel initiative was started in 2018 with initial funding support from the University of Ghana BANGA Africa seed grant programme. This was followed by a two-year funding in 2021, through the University of Ghana Research Fund “Multidisciplinary Category”, another 2-year co-funding by the French Embassy’s “FSPI NYANSAPO programme in 2022, and currently an extended French Embassy of Ghana support for marine plastics coastal community impact project. These funding supports have and continue to help train students in sustainable waste resource management. We are very grateful for the support of stakeholders and looking forward to scaling up the project!
