Accra, May 21, GNA - About 2,000 national waste management task force team on Saturday started an exercise to rid the city of Accra of all kinds of plastic waste.

The exercise, which was to create awareness on the need for proper management of plastic waste took the team, made up of stakeholders in the production of plastic waste through various parts of Accra including Nungua, Korle Lagoon, Kaneshie, North Industrial Area and Tema.

Mr Kofi Osei-Ameyaw, Deputy Minister of Trade and Industry who addressed the group later, said, " today marked the beginning of solving the problem of plastic waste throughout the country," and urged people not to litter waste in the city so that the it would become a thing of the past.

He said it was the need to get people to manage waste that the Ministries of Environment, Trade and Industry, Local Government, Environmental Protection Agency, were working out a levy to be placed on plastic products, which in effect, would also be transferred to the final consumer.

" The final consumers could claim some of this money by sending waste material to the producers or sellers or throw the waste material away and loose some of their money."

He said the Mayor of Accra, Nii Adjiri Blankson directed that since the remnants of sachet water and waste plastic bags were a menace to society and there was the need to get the producers of the sachet water, who had been elusive to register with AMA, a temporary ban would be placed on the production of sachet water on June 1 2005.

According to Mr Osei Ameyaw, producers of plastic water were threatened by this proposal and decided to assist in the management of the waste in order to safeguard their business.

Mr Devine Otoo, National Chairman of national Plastic Waste Task Force said the country produces about 200 metric tonnes of plastic waste daily and had a recycling capacity of less than 10 metric tonnes. He said, to manage the 190 leftover metric tonnes, foreign waste management companies like Plastic Waste Management Ghana Limited, an American company was in the country to assist in recycling the waste.