GARBAGE COLLECTION SEPARATION SHOULD BE ENCOURAGED IN GHANA

So far, many Ghanaians are not used to topics like garbage collection, pollution, and waste separation or even recycling. The common practice right now is that people drop their waste at the spot where they don't need it anymore, meaning that they just throw it into the drains next to the street or anywhere else, especially because there are no litter cans anywhere to be seen. The problem is that especially plastic items such as water sachets or soda bottles will not dissolve but stay for many years. This means that there is an absolute need to collect the garbage to keep the environment clean.

A company that takes care of this issue is Zoomlion Waste Management. Zoomlion are operating thoughout entire Ghana and in other countries like Togo or Angola.

 The Ag. Regional Operations Supervisor of Zoomlion in Cape Coast John Sackey, revealed that the company's services and plans is to improve the Ghanaian environment. He said part of Zoomlion's business is the supply of large containers (12 -15 m³) to the communities in the Central Region where people can deliver their waste from their homes. Once filled up the containers are picked up by trucks and emptied at a designated dump outside Cape Coast.

The company also supply smaller individual garbage cans to private homes. Homeowners do not have to pay for the container but are charged for the collection which happens based on agreement, e.g. once a week or every other week.

Another branch of Zoomlion's activities is NETP, the National Youth Employment Program. Here young people are being paid to ride around the streets on special tricycles that are equipped with a container. The workers collect the garbage from the streets and the drains, put it in their containers and the content again gets moved to the dump. In addition, once the pile gets too big, a bulldozer comes and compresses the trash.

Now here we can find the next problem. The dump is located in a valley northeast of Cape Coast with a small river nearby. Nevertheless, before opening the dump the ground has never been sealed. This means that when it is raining, the poison from the rotten garbage is being washed into the ground and polluting the river and the groundwater which then again leads to health problems.

Still, the collection of garbage is the first of many steps to come to a cleaner environment in Ghana. Once people get used to that, the next step will be the separation of the different materials such as plastic, glass, metal, paper to recycle them.

In recent times, some youths at the refuse site who are collecting these materials to use them again but apart from the unhealthy environment, it would be much more effective to separate these items in the first place instead dumping them all together.

John Sackey says that he hopes that in the future Zoomlion will have a separation facility for the garbage as they are now common in the „modern world“ but it can't be foreseen when this will turn into reality. Nevertheless, recycling will be, regarding to Sackey, a major issue as it is in first world countries already. The production of water sachets, plastic bottles etc. need many raw materials like oil and energy. Instead of just producing more of these containers with the old ones piling up on the garbage dump one the goals is bringing them into a recycling process to save resources and energy.

As we have mentioned before, one of the biggest factors of the pollution are the water sachets that seem to fly around everywhere. One of these bags with half a litre of drinking water only costs approximately 10 pesewas. There is no doubt about the fact that clean drinking water has to be affordable for everybody but on the other hand, ways have to found to reduce the amount of waste caused by it. So one suggestion Sackey made was to increase the price for the sachet water moderately and introduce a refund system so that when people return the empty bag they will be refunded with some money for it.

Refund systems have been very effectively put in place in European and North American countries. For example for each soda or beer bought in Germany, the customer has to pay an extra 10 – 25 Cents, which he will get back when returning the empty container. Moreover, for those who are too lazy to bring them back and just throw them away, somebody else will pick up the bottles and cash them in.

If people still refuse to return their bags, the additional money could also be seen as an environment tax, used for the collection of the garbage, Sackey says.

The most important issue though is to educate the people to change their behaviour. People must be aware that they have to keep clean the environment to save it for the future and for their children. Therefore, Zoomlion also has „sanitation guards“who work with the communities and health offices to show them importance of a clean environment. He said, when people still are not willing to change their minds, there is also the possibility to enact bylaws to force the people to protect their environment. It is still a long way to go but the first steps have been made. - Axel Patsch