MMDAs urged to adopt biogas digesters for sustainable waste management
Mr Lovans Owusu-Takyi, the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Energy and Environmental Solutions (ISEES) has called on Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to adopt biogas digesters for sustainable waste management.
He also urged food processing companies and industries to do the same for effective management of waste.
Mr Owusu-Takyi said: “Biogas digesters does not only provide effective liquid and solid waste management opportunities but have co-benefits of generating energy for lighting and heating as well as organic fertilizer for improved soil fertility and food security.
He made the call when he addressed 45 bioenergy and biogas practitioners, policymakers and officials from the Ministries, Departments and Agencies, who were on a capacity building and study tour of large-scale biogas companies in the Greater Accra and Eastern Regions.
The study tour was organised by ISEES under the auspices of the Digital Global Biogas Cooperation (DibiCoo) Project with support from the European Union Horizon2020.
This was to improve the participants’ understanding of European style municipal and industrial waste management technologies using anaerobic digestion for waste treatment.
Some participants were also taken to Germany, South Africa and Indonesia to learn about biogas installations and participate in business-to-business matchmaking with other international biogas experts to improve their understanding of the management and operations of large-scale biogas digesters for sustainable waste management.
Mr Owusu-Takyi stated that ISEES was keen on providing competency-based skills training and building capacity of biogas and bioenergy practitioners in improving their technical and entrepreneurial skills to make them effective.
He said the DibiCoo Project has been a three-year multi-country project that sought to provide technology transfer, knowledge exchange, capacity building and market development for European bioenergy and biogas practitioners in partnership with Ghanaian biogas practitioners to improve their competitiveness and growth.
“The project also seeks to create a sustainable market for European biogas technologies through technology transfer with developing countries like Ghana, Indonesia, South Africa and Ethiopia,” he stated.
The project is being coordinated by the Gesellschafts fur International Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) in Germany and 13 other consortium partners in nine countries across the globe and seeks to strengthen the business and market framework for bioenergy and biogas project developers using both digital and non-digital tools.
The director said the project has created opportunities for biogas practitioners.
Mr Diamond Amedewonu, an Environmental Health Officer of the Ayensuano District Assembly and a participant expressed gratitude to ISEES and the DibiCoo Project for the eye-opening capacity building study tour.
He said the biogas systems were very important for municipalities to integrate into their waste management plans to ensure effective treatment of waste and its co-benefits of energy generation and the production of organic fertilizer.
Mr Amedewonu gave the assurance that he and his co-participants would go back to their respective municipalities to integrate the concept into their projects.
Source: GNA