Epidemic Looms…

It appears that, if the Accra Metropolitan Assembly (A.M.A), does not vary its intervention in managing the quantum of waste generated on a daily basis by three million people under its jurisdiction, the capital city, Accra, would soon be hit by an epidemic.

This is because, out of the 2,000 metric tons of waste generated daily in Accra, only 1,5000 tons on the average is collected by those who have been assigned to do so. This way, they leave a deficit of 500 tons daily to stockpile. Its implications could be anybody’s guess.

It is obvious that the A.M.A is reeling under serious constraints in getting the waste generated in the cosmopolitan region managed effectively as statistics from its outfit indicates that, as a January 2010, 14 contractors were owed over GH¢10m for waste collection.

Ishmael Adams, project director of the CHF International, a non-governmental organization, predicts dire environmental consequences in the near future, should the city authorities fail to depart immediately from the traditional way of managing waste.

Speaking in an interview with The Heritage, he stated that, the current culture of collecting waste and dumping it at a site is bound to worsen the trend as people compete for space with mountains of refuse at their backyards.

And, if that happens, its expensive products will inevitably, be cholera, diarrhea, dysentery, bronchitis, and other communicable diseases that will take merciless toll on Ghanaians who struggle with landfill sites close to their households.

Mr. Adams asserted that the inability of city authorities to manage waste effectively is as a result of the near absence of a clear-cut strategy and vision to deal with waste, weak capacity of waste collectors and poor engineering of landfill sites.

“Waste should not be seen as a thing that nothing can be done about but, rather, value should be added to it,” he said. It is against this backdrop that CHF International, through the Nimba Community Support Services (NIMCOSS), has rolled out a strategy dubbed Youth Engagement in Service Delivery to address the challenge of waste management. Under the project, inorganic waste would be recycled to benefit the very society that generated it.

Source: The Heritage/Ghana