Energy Commission recovers gas from seized used refrigerators

The Energy Commission has set up recovery facilities at Afienya and Kwabenya, both in the Greater Accra Region, to recover gases from confiscated used refrigerators.

The recovery facilities, which were funded by the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Global Environmental Facility (GEF) at the cost of $2.1 million, are to prevent gases in used refrigerators from emitting into the atmosphere.

So far, the recovery facility at Afienya has recovered gases from 10,090 of the 16,000 used refrigerators confiscated at the Tema Port since June, 2013.

The Kwabenya facility is working on 1,000 used refrigerators.

The confiscation followed the ban on the importation of used refrigerators last year because of their huge consumption of electricity and the emission of harmful gases, such as Chlorofluorocarbon (CFC) into the atmosphere.

Mr Richard Boadi Soadwa,the Project Manager of Presank Management Limited, engineers of the project,  disclosed this during an assessment visit to  the facility at Afienya by a UNDP team 

The team was led by the UNDP Communications Analyst, Mr Bossman Owusu.

Mr Soadwa explained that a machine retrieved gas from used refrigerators into cylinders provided by the EPA.

Thereafter, he said, engineers dismantled the refrigerators and separated irons from plastics.

He said recycled irons from the refrigerators were used for steel works while recycled plastics were used in the manufacture of plastic chairs.

Mr Soadwa said gases from the used refrigerators had been put in cylinders and taken to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). 

He said the EPA would dispose of the CFCS while the hydro carbons would be reused in refrigerators.

UNDP

Mr Bossman said the UNDP and GEF supported the Refrigerating Appliance Energy Efficiency Project in an attempt to save the environment and help the country to conserve energy.

For instance, he said, under the rebate system operated at the Kwabenya recovery facility, people were encouraged to trade-in their old refrigerators and top up with a little amount of money for replacement with new refrigerator.

Mr Bossman said that arrangement was useful at this time that Ghana was grappling with energy crisis.

Referring to EPA statistics, he said the 15,000 refrigerators at the Afienya recovery plant consumed about 18,000 megawatts  per hour, which could provide power to 6,000 households.