Accra's Informal Waste Workers Are Paid to Collect the Rubbish That Used to Be Burned

Green Africa Youth Organization runs the Zero Waste Cities project in Accra, which pays and organises informal waste workers to collect household waste that would otherwise be burned or dumped. The Clean Air Fund reported in October 2025 that more than 500 informal workers now provide affordable disposal in communities that had no service, and GAYO says neighbourhoods where it works see less burning. In April 2026 GAYO reported that the project, which began in 2023, had diverted about 1,072 tonnes of waste from landfill and open burning across Ghana, Uganda and Botswana, avoiding about 14,288 tonnes of CO2e, and that Accra was named one of the UN's first 20 Cities Towards Zero Waste. These are the organisation's own figures and no burning-specific measurement has been published.