Make Ghana Clean and Green

Who doesn’t want to live in a clean and a healthy environment as seen in the pictures on the left? Nature made everything for us, clean and green. It is up to us to preserve nature or nature takes everything from us. We all Ghanaians need to be responsible to improve sanitation in our surroundings. Gone too soon and what a shock that we normally write on obituary cards can be reduced if we take action to sanitise our environment.

One of the UN’s Sustainable Development Themes is Healthy Environment, Healthy People. The UN’s agenda 2030 on Sustainable Development (2016), states that a “healthy environment is integral to the full enjoyment of basic human rights, including the rights to life, health, food, water and sanitation, and quality of life.” When we continue to litter our gutters and open spaces with garbage we create breeding environments for mosquitoes and pathogens to infect our lives with diseases. The cost burden on both the government and ourselves to find a good healthcare to remedy our illnesses is beyond comprehension.

Then, what is the point of the National Sanitation Day if we clean and refill? On every National Sanitation Day, we do our best to clean the gutters to open up the sewage systems. The following day, we fill up the gutters with trash again. We are not getting anywhere. We need civil responsibilities. There must be a stringent law to punish people who are caught littering around.

We can make Ghana clean and green by

• limiting the use of plastics and using paper bags instead
• prohibiting littering and punishing offenders
• implementing effective waste collection and management schemes
• growing green grasses and trees; grasses can reduce erosion.
• making ourselves responsible citizens

Impacts

• Reduction in the rate of epidemics
• Increased life span, safe life
• Reduction of medical burden on the government
• Reduction in disaster cost (cost savings from NADMO)
• Access to healthy foods, clean water, clean air
• Increase in development and foreign investments
• Increase in tourist attraction
• Serene environment to feel/ connect to nature
• Relief and good thinking

According to researchers at the University of Minnesota's Earl E. Bakken Center for Spirituality & Healing, your personal environment impacts your wellbeing as follows:

• Influence your mood
• Impact your behavior and motivation to act
• Facilitate or discourage interactions
• Create or reduce stress

Yes! You feel happy when you enter the botanical gardens or when you visit the Kakum National Park. Studies have also shown that children who live in less stressful communities do well at school. Also, nobody wants to have a long chat with a friend near a littered and a smelling gutter. Everybody would want to add to the waste when there is already a heap of waste. Make Ghana Clean and green! The cleaner our environment and the longer our trees, the longer we live.

References:
UN Environment Programme (2016), Healthy Environment, Healthy People, the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and Goals. [Online] Retrieved from https://www.unenvironment.org/news-and-stories/story/healthy-environment-healthy-people [Accessed 16.12.2018].

Impacts of Your Personal Environment on Your Wellbeing, Earl E. Bakken’s Center for Spirituality & Healing, University of Minnesota. [Online] Retrieved from https://www.takingcharge.csh.umn.edu/enhance-your-wellbeing/environment/your-personal-environment/how-does-your-personal-environment-impa [Accessed 16.12.2018].