The Managing Director of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Doris Kwekwor Adjei, received the Ghana Women of Excellence Gold Award for Environmental Sustainability at a ceremony in Accra on Thursday, March 6, 2026, using her acceptance remarks to outline the company’s push toward a circular economy model that treats collected waste as a commercial resource rather than a disposal problem.
The award was presented at the 11th edition of the Ghana Women Excellence Awards at the Coconut Grove Regency Hotel, organised by Top Brass Ghana ahead of International Women’s Day on March 8.
In her remarks, Mrs. Adjei stepped away from the conventional award-night script to address what she described as a necessary transformation in how Ghana approaches waste. “Waste that we collect is value. Waste is gold. We are moving towards a circular economy where waste is not just collected and sent to landfill, but transformed into value through different processes,” she said.
The comments reflect a broader strategic shift within Zoomlion. The company has evolved over two decades from basic municipal waste collection into a comprehensive value-chain operator running 36 treatment facilities across Ghana, covering medical, liquid, and solid waste processing. The Labour Minister, Rashid Pelpuo, who visited the Accra Compost and Recycling Plant (ACARP) in February, disclosed that approximately 200,000 Ghanaians have benefited from employment opportunities created across the sanitation value chain.
Despite that scale, the sector faces persistent structural barriers. Accra alone generates over 3,000 tonnes of waste daily, and challenges including poor waste segregation at source, inadequate recycling infrastructure, illegal dumping, and weak enforcement of sanitation laws continue to limit progress toward a sustainable waste management system. Industry researchers also point to fragmented government policy on waste-to-energy technologies as a significant obstacle to private sector investment in next-generation treatment facilities.
Mrs. Adjei also addressed women in leadership, urging them to take ownership of their roles without apology. “Own your space. You did not sit on that chair by mistake. It is for a reason. Drive performance, but also remember that people come first before their jobs,” she said.
