Officials from SNV Ghana and Ambassadors from the European Union (EU) member countries have paid a working visit to Premier Waste Ghana to familiarize themselves with the activities of the facility.

Premier Waste Ghana is a waste management startup that provides low-cost plastic waste recovery, collections, and recycling infrastructure with an effective waste pickers network in managing plastic waste in Ghana.

The visit was to enable the delegation to know how the startup was solving the plastic waste menace in Ghana, and creating employment for women and the youth in the country, and also to know how the SNV Ghana GrEEn Acceleration project was helping the company in greening its operations and plans to solve the high rate of unemployment in Ghana.

The delegation included the EU Ambassador to Ghana, H.E. Irchad Razaaly, Deputy Ambassador of the Royal Norwegian Embassy in Ghana, H.E. Kyrre Holm, representatives from the UN Capital Development Fund, and a team from SNV Ghana.

Addressing the delegation, Mr Edmund Arthur Brown, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Premier Waste Ghana took the team through the process of operation and highlighted how green it was.

He announced that the activities of Premiere Waste Ghana were providing green employment to over one-hundred and seventy-five (175) individuals directly and indirectly.

He noted that green enterprise was a fertile ground for providing employable opportunities and support for women.

Mr Brown said the startup, like other Green entrepreneurs, had received enormous support from the GrEEn Incubation Programme and business advisory support from SNV Ghana towards building eco-inclusive SMEs.

He announced that Premiere Waste Ghana contributed to caring for the environment by providing low-cost plastic waste recovery, collections, and recycling infrastructure to produce PET flakes.

“The value chain in the plastic sector has had enormous support in Ghana. This support helps Premier Waste Ghana to do more by educating schools, communities, churches, and marketplaces about economic and environmental impacts on plastic waste”, he enumerated.

Mr Irchad Razaaly indicated that, "almost everyone thrives on support and that, good ideas, businesses and the environment need support to survive".

“As Wendell Berry said, ‘the Earth is what we all have in common.' It is in this commonest that we all need to care for the environment”, he pointed out.

The delegation described the visit as thrilling and encouraging as it would strengthen the workforce to know how little action goes a long way to care for the environment and give a second life to plastic waste.

They were happy with the work of the startup and also promised to pay regular visits.