By Florence Afriyie Mensah, GNA
Kumasi, Oct. 13, GNA – Ecofurn Ghana, a local firm turning plastic waste and agricultural residues including rice husks and groundnut shells into wood alternative composite boards, has been recognized and awarded by an international organization, the Iris Project.
The Iris Project, is a global initiative fund, supporting young leaders working on nature protection and biodiversity restoration.
As part of the awards, the Iris Seed Prize, will support Ecofurn Ghana activities with early-stage development, to practical production, which encompasses proper durability and safety testing for the board to meet a standard school desk, which holds up over years of daily use.
Again, Ecofurn Ghana, will be supported to acquire a locally fabricated, low-cost machine to move beyond manual production, complete its legal registration to be recognized as an enterprise, in addition to supporting it to produce its first batch of desks and deliver them to a partner school.
Miss Khadijah Yamyiya Seidu, Chief Executive Officer, Ecofurn Ghana, speaking to the Ghana News Agency (GNA) in Kumasi, said currently, the firm was focusing on using the composite boards to make school desks.
This, she explained, was due to Ghana’s huge school furniture deficit.
More than 2.3 million children in public basic schools have no proper desk in Ghana, according to Africa Education Watch.
They sit on the floor or learn in overcrowded conditions, and it shows in their concentration, their posture and what they take from the day.
Miss Seidu indicated that, current market research by her team revealed that school desks on the market were not durable – did not last and break down frequently, citing that, the boards produced by Ecofurn were insect and water resistant, which makes it last longer.
She said Ecofurn would continue to tackle environmental challenges and education shortfalls as combined problems.
“Plastic waste is widely mismanaged, dumped in open spaces or burned, releasing pollutants into the air and into the health of the communities living with it.
Rice husk, a common byproduct of milling, is burned or left in heaps across farming communities, with the same result.
Meeting that need the conventional way means cutting more timber, which adds to deforestation and strips out the climate resilience those same communities depend on”, she acknowledged.
Miss Seidu told the GNA that Ecofurn Ghana worked on all of it at once, transforming these waste into useful school furniture.
She called on the government to increase support for such start-ups adding that environmental sustainability was a shared responsibility which should be taken seriously.
GNA
Edited by Kwabia Owusu-Mensah/Kenneth Odeng Adade
Reporter: Florence Afriyie Mensah
Email: [email protected]