CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
1.1 Background to the study
According to the UN-Habitat, state of the world’s cities, 2008/09, page 129, a major flood in Surat, India, in 1994 resulted in an outbreak of a plague-like disease, and the official inquiry cited uncollected solid waste of which plastics are of greater percentage blocking drains. The disease caused panic country-wide and while the citizens blame the municipality, the public authorities in turn blamed the citizens for their lack of civic sense. Such a phenomenon of blame games when it comes to waste management and whose responsibility is it occurs in most major cities in the developing world, and Accra, Ghana is no exception. Solid waste management is a herculean task and can easily become a crisis if it is ignored. A solid waste crisis can grossly undermine the credibility of city authorities and the efficiency of systems put in place for the management of solid waste, for that matter plastic waste generated due to packaging.
Accra Metropolitan Assembly covers an area of 137sq km. The metropolis is bounded on; the East by the La- Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly, on the south by the Gulf of Guinea, on the West by Ga South and Central Municipal Assemblies, and on the North by the Ga West and La-Nkwatanang Municipal Assembly. The 2010 Population and Housing
Unlike thermoplastics, thermosetting plastics cannot be remoulded and hence cannot be reused (Pavani & Rajeswari, 2014). Among such common examples of thermosetting plastics are polyurethane (its applications include shock absorbers, shoe heels and refrigerator insulation), unsaturated polyesters (its applications include boat hulls, automobile bodies, radar domes and artificial limbs) and phenolic (its application includes billiard balls, end panels of toaster ovens and automobile break system components) (Ertas,