Solving Ghana's rubbish menace: The way forward now

By definition, rubbish is the stuff that people throw away. It might be something that we don’t want any more.

Generally, rubbish could be liquid or solid waste and both of them could be hazardous to our health and the entire country as a whole. We all throw away rubbish everyday, and therefore there is the need to properly dispose of it and not to think it is the duty of somebody to do it right.

It is a fact that proper disposal of rubbish has always been a difficult problem throughout Ghana but with the proper teaching, learning and the right motivation we can overcome it with ease. According to an article published at http://www.ghanacelebrities.com on 22/07/2015, Ghana was ranked the 7th dirtiest country in the world. The report further stated that Ghana was ranked 10th worst country in the globe the previous year, an indication that we are slipping gradually and therefore we need to do something as citizens before we are branded the dirtiest country on the planet.

In this article, I will limit myself to the solid waste types which, predominantly, are any garbage, refuse or rubbish that we make in our homes, offices and other places. To deal with this menace, we need to start from somewhere and this is what I will be proposing through the Ghana web news medium to the authorities concern.

Ghana’s rubbish problems need to be solved by all individuals and this can be achieved through selfless dedication and law abiding. We need to start it all over from the scratch through proper education from our kindergartens through to the Universities. We need to cultivate the habit of sorting out our household rubbish and disposing of it appropriately in a manner that will allow for easy decomposition, burning or re-use.

This we have to do daily in order to reduce the waste we produce. For such activity to be sustainable the authorities responsible for sanitation in the country should come up with colour code containers or bins for different types of rubbish and this should be given a national recognition. For example: Organic waste such as leftovers from food, food peelings and any plant base product should be disposed into green bins or containers for further composting.

Aluminium products (like mineral, milk, sardine and tomato cans), Plastics (shopping/robber bags, plastic bottles, pure water sachet), Paper products (used newspapers and magazines, cardboard boxes) can be can be put into yellow bins or containers.

Glass products (like wine and beer bottles, broken glass) can be put into the blue bins or containers.

In the cities and towns, all three coloured bin or container types can be put along busy routes for dumping of hand held refuse by pedestrians. There should be more of such containers so as to avoid spill over and should be emptied as frequently as possible. In some cases, phone numbers can be put on containers for citizens to call in to the council for immediate collection when filled to the brim to avoid spill over. In our various residential areas too, household occupants shall be mandated to get all three-colour coded bins if affordable or buy the council plastic/rubber bags and sort out rubbish before finally sending them out to the dump site every morning as they normally do.

The council’s rubber bags should come with name and address of the council or the metropolitan assemble printed boldly and visible on both sides. Such plastic bags shall be the property of the council or metropolitan assembly and should be sold to the public to put their rubbish in before sending to the dump site and any rubbish not put into a council rubbish bag should not be dump. Dump attendants should always ensure that the right plastic/rubber bags are used and if possible security cameras should be mounted to prevent people for doing the wrong thing.

If we start now with the younger generations, we will achieve some form of cleanliness in our towns and cities in five years time to come. By which time over 90 percent of the citizens would have become adapted to recycling and living in a clean environment. All we need is proper education in schools, churches and our work places and this would be passed on by children to their parents in the homes too.

For this to be on going and sustainable all the authorities involve in the maintenance of sanitation in the country for example the metropolitan assembles and the Ghana Education service should contract experts on environmental sanitation and waste management to come up with an educational program for syllabus and teaching notes which would be incorporated into the school curriculum and if possible students/pupils must be examined at the end of each term as part of the regular school examinations.

Secondly, all churches in the country should also be mandated by the government or the Christian council of churches to incorporate into their church programs a waste management education and sanitation reminders to their members after all cleanliness is next to Godliness we say.

Thirdly, while this teaching and learning is underway, the various advertisement agencies, entertainment groups and the media houses can also come up with programs to highlight and remind people their civic responsibilities in keeping our environment clean.

In places where containers or bins are subjected to vandalism or theft, such containers should be chained and lock and if possible security cameras should be mounted on private properties nearby to monitor any unfriendly activities and also to deter people from doing the wrong things.

The advantages of this exercise if adapted will be that there will be less rubbish on our streets. Rubbish put into green containers can be composted and used to fertilize our lands for growing crops. Card boards, papers and other plastics put into yellow bin can be burn with no difficulty and those other non-recyclable that will be sent to landfills will required less land area for refill and above all there will be less breeding grounds for the mosquitoes.

The earlier we adopt this, the better it will be for our generations to come. We have lived in filth for long and we need to change our attitudes of not pursuing for the best but instead wait for things to go bad and assigned blames.