Ghana’s environmental regulator says it will go ahead with a full ban on styrofoam food packaging from January 2027, urging vendors and manufacturers to switch to greener alternatives.
The ban reaches well beyond the familiar takeaway pack. It covers the making, import, sale and use of all polystyrene foam, including disposable cups and plates, the cheap containers that millions of chop bars, caterers and street vendors lean on every day. President John Mahama first signalled the move on World Environment Day in June 2025, and the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) fixed the start date at 1 January 2027. Medical and scientific uses are exempt.
At the 2026 environmental sustainability summit hosted by the Business and Financial Times, Senior Programmes Officer Hope Kotoka Ahiabu cast the ban as a chance rather than a burden. He said it opens room for green businesses and jobs, and pointed to paper packaging, biodegradable materials and even leaves, the way food was wrapped a generation ago. He said the EPA is talking to industry to ready it for the change.
The pitch sidesteps the harder question of cost. Foam packs are cheap and insulate well, which is why low income vendors depend on them, and substitutes still cost more. Advocacy groups that welcomed the ban have pressed the same point. AERC Ghana called for a foam free transition plan to guide vendors, schools and assemblies, while Eco Amet Solutions asked the EPA to spell out which affordable alternatives exist at scale, how borders will be policed against smuggled foam, and exactly how the rule will be enforced after the deadline. Without that, they warn, a ban could simply breed a black market.
Ahiabu set the policy within a wider compliance drive. He said the EPA has opened 50 district offices to widen its reach and rolled out a digital permit system to speed approvals and tighten records. The authority is also stepping up checks on waste water, hazardous chemicals, electronic waste and hospital waste, and he urged people to stop open burning. On the mercury and silt that illegal mining pours into rivers, he said no single agency can win that fight and called for a national effort.
Speaking for the Jospong Group, which owns the waste firm Zoomlion, chief communications officer Sophia Kudjodzi pushed stakeholders to act rather than talk. “Let’s move from paper to projects and practical solutions,” she said. She said most of the group’s work already targets climate problems, including waste collection, processing and landfill management, and that as a private business it pursues profit and public benefit together.
The deadline sits about 18 months out. Whether Ghana meets it may turn less on the announcement than on getting cheap, clean alternatives into the hands of the vendors who fill the country’s drains with foam today.
