How Dispose is Transforming The Waste Management Industry In Ghana
You may be wondering how the Dispose app is transforming Ghana’s waste management landscape and making waste collection more reliable and sustainable, while on our missions to end waste.
What is Waste Management?
Waste management refers to the process of collecting, transporting, and disposal of garbage and other waste products. There are eight major groups of waste management methods which include reduction and reuse, animal feeding, recycling, composting, fermentation, landfills, incineration, and land application.
In Ghana, solid waste is managed by transferring the waste from bins or trash bags into a waste collection vehicle, which is later transferred to a dumping site. Waste is usually collected every week and payments are made to revenue collectors at the end of the month. Landfills are the most used waste management methods in Ghana. Only 2% of our waste is recycled!
Gaps in Ghana’s Waste Collection
Our current waste collection system helped in the past, but with continuous urbanization and increasing demand for waste collection services, this collection method has lost its efficiency and has made waste a menace in the country. Waste contractors don’t show up on trash days as expected, customers are overbilled even for missed pickups, poor customer service, amidst others.
Dispose to the Rescue
The three most important things homes and businesses want when it comes to waste management are reliability, affordability, and great customer service. This is exactly what we offer.
We have a constantly increasing number of waste haulers in addition to our internal waste collection team. These haulers are assigned to specific locations and customer groups to ensure whenever you need a waste pickup, someone is available to pick it up. Most of these haulers are informal waste collectors. We vet these haulers to ensure they are disposing at the right places and give them incentives to earn more on our platform while spending fewer resources.
With our technology and network of haulers, we offer on-demand and recurring waste collection services to homes and businesses with ease. Users who do not make a lot of waste can request a waste pickup, with 24-hour turnaround time. This saves on their waste bill as they only pay for trash they dispose of. Our recurring users don’t get charged for pickups we don’t do – For example, a customer paying GHS 80 a month for 4 pickups will have GHS 20 rolled over to the next month if only 3 pickups were done.
Aside ensuring your waste is picked up on time, our platform how much you spend on waste, how much waste you have diverted, and multiple ways for you to pay your bills.
Recycling
Dispose has partnered with recycling companies across various waste streams spanning from plastics, glass, organic, paper, and metal waste. After a waste assessment, we sign up our users to a waste diversion program where they segregate their waste, which is collected at regular intervals. The trash is weighed and updated on the customer’s account. In addition to savings from recycling, we give our users cashback as an incentive to join our mission to end waste.
Big Data
We collect over 100 data points on our waste management operations to constantly improve our waste collection, sustainability, and billing processes. This has helped us increase the number of users recycling with us, which waste streams to focus on per user, best routing techniques, other patterns. This data can be helpful to municipalities and other waste stakeholders in improving waste management as a whole in the country.
Wrapping Up
We believe the future of waste management in Africa lies in technology and Dispose is pioneering the waste revolution. We invite you to work with us in changing Africa’s waste landscape, one city at a time. If you want to get involved with us, send us an email at [email protected] and we’ll be happy to work with you.
