Tarkwa Ghana: “Ever since I was born, I have never seen the plantain stem used for anything other than rotting after harvesting,” said Barnabas Attah a peasant farmer. “During every rainy season, I lose about 25 % of my plantain plants due to high wind current but I have no other alternative use for the broken stem than to rot away” said Mrs. Abrafi Ankamah, a plantain farmer. “We burn our rice chaffs after processing because they are wastes and we have no use for them,” said Atinga Adongo a Ghanaian rice processor. These statements summarise the long-age practice of not creating value from farm by-products and materials because they were called wastes. But as Zimmerman strongly propounded several decades ago “resources are not, they become,” after years of research into how best to efficiently utilize farm wastes and help improve the finances of Ghanaian farmers, a breakthrough has been achieved finally. The TICSEP waste-to-resource project has partnered with Mending Papers in optimizing the production of papers and packaging materials from farm materials such as rice straw, corn husk and plantain stems. Great acknowledgement to SNV, Ghana for their great financial and coaching support to the project. The proponent of Mending papers, Mrs. Juana Arthur was motivated by her strong desire to create sustainable jobs for the youth in her community out of their everyday farm waste. After some feasibility studies and participation in green business incubation training by SNV Ghana, her dream has come to light. Now, she makes beautiful paper packages for individuals and organisations. “I think Mrs. Arthur is a genius and a contemporary conservationist looking at her aspiration and persistence to create something purposeful by just looking around her immediate environment,” said Mr. Baffour Siaw the Community development Advisor of TICSEP. Her project remains key to TICSEP considering our years of advocating a circularity as an efficient way to maximise derived value from materials whilst solving waste management challenges in society. Whilst TICSEP continues to assist Mending Papers in the optimisation of their products and increase market access, it is believed that farmers will increase their revenues through trading “farm wastes” for cash. Thus, creating decent income to supplement their merger earnings. Beyond driving a circular economy, we can be assured that with time, global dependence on trees to serve the paper industries could be reduced especially when these biomaterials could be obtained readily and globally. You can promote circular economy management and green businesses by patronising products (envelops, cardboard, shopping bags and wrappers) from Mending Papers. Contact them in Ghana at +233243736042 or email Mendingpapers@gmail.com