“The production of fuels like diesel and petrol from waste plas­tics would accrue huge savings for the energy sector,” he said.

He added that, “Waste plastics have both advantages and disad­vantages, but those disadvantages will come if you fail to manage them efficiently. We can set up, for example, an oil-making in­dustry in Ghana based solely on plastics and other raw materials in Ghana. Let me throw this chal­lenge to the government.”

Prof. Dankwah was delivering an inaugural lecture at UMaT on Wednesday, on the topic: ‘Waste Plastics, a Modern Day Resource Paradox: Leveraging its Positive Attributes for an Environmental­ly Sustainable Metals Production.’

He said globally, the annual production of plastics had wit­nessed progressive growth from 2 Mt in 1950 to 400 Mt in 2022, at an annual growth rate of 8.4 per cent.

Furthermore, Prof. Dankwah, who is also the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Mining and Minerals Technology at UMaT, said over 350 Mt of plastic waste were generated annually with just 9 per cent recycled while the rest was either landfilled, incinerated, or disposed of illegally.

He indicated that waste plastics contain both carbon and hydro­gen, which are known reductants for the production of metals from their oxides.

He detailed results from the production of various metals iron, manganese, copper from their ores using various ‘waste’ plastic materials, adding that the use of waste plastics resulted in a significant decrease in CO? emissions.

“The potential for energy savings is demonstrated through the replacement of CO? with synthetic gas. How can we leverage the plastic waste for the use of society? Ghana can take the advantages,” Prof. Dankwah noted.

Waste plastics, he emphasised, had huge potential for various fuels, and that, globally, four per cent of all the crude oil produced was used in producing plastics, through the process of polymerisation.

However, he explained that currently, UMaT researchers use the reverse, called a depolymer­isation process, to turn all the plastic waste back into liquids to produce fuels like kerosene and aviation or jet fuels.

Mpreover, Prof. Dankwah underlined that with the current cost of energy, the government could take advantage of these sources of electricity, enhance cost savings in the energy sec­tor, and improve availability and efficiency.

“Currently, we are also working on how to use the same plastic waste to produce the premix fuel used by fishermen. This will be of huge benefit to Ghana. This technology, where we turn all the plastic waste into fuel, can be sold at about 50 per cent to 70 per cent of the normal fuel price, so that we can cut down on the cost of elec­tricity in Ghana,” he revealed.