A Law On One Dust-Bin Per Household Can Curb The Sanitation Menace In Ghana

The popular saying that 'cleanliness is next to Godliness' is a mere abstract statement and not a priority for many Ghanaians despite our pretentious attitudes of being believers and worshippers of the Divine God. The natural environment would be cursing every individual in Ghana for failing woefully to maintain sanitary and hygienic environment.

When one walks within and across the streets of any town or city in Ghana, it is always an eye-shore regarding how the open surroundings are littered, gutters choked, air polluted, buildings dilapidated and above all the bad stinks and odor from gutters, urinals, toilets and other sanitary facilities. It is not uncommon to find people throwing refuse on open surroundings. The backyards of people's homes, uncompleted buildings, road sites, gutters, under bridges and public open places are being turned into dumping sites. The perpetrators do it with absolute impunity.

The consequential effects of impunities behaviors are bare to see. A little drop of rain water result to flooding- destroying people's property, loss of lives and increasing vulnerabilities. To add insults to injury, water ways are being blocked by uncontrolled and unregulated buildings and properties. People are looking unconcern about the hygienic and poor environmental practices. Dumping sites, gutters and other waste management facilities serve as rapid breeding places for insects, flies, mosquitoes, reptiles, and microscopic organisms. The repercussions of are enormous- malaria, diarrhea, cholera, fever, and many more, putting pressure on the few available health facilities and medical staff, government expenditure keeps sorting up, whiles families have to more expenditure on health care, leaving a meager budget for other basic needs and subsequently re-entrenches extreme poverty in the country at large.

Governments over the years have invested so much resources on environmental sanitation and hygiene. Several interventions have also been adopted including partnership with Zoom Lion Ltd and other waste management bodies to help ensure environmental sanitation. Private and Civil Society groups have continually play crucial role on sanitation and hygiene. Yet, very little has been achieved. There are equally several laws and regulations at both national and local level to ensure sanitation, whiles the Environmental Protection Agency and other related departments and agencies playing significant role in this regard. Unfortunately, not much result has been achieved.

The problem of sanitation is attitudinal and a law must be adopted to enforce attitude change. People have generally taken the position of 'I don't care' and the only solution is to adopt 'I don't care' law. Perhaps, government should initiate a law on one dust-bin per Household. In this regard, government should supply every household with a dust-bin across the country, one shop per bin and making it compulsory for organizations both private and public to have dust bins. On the streets, dust bins should be place between every 100 meters to enable passersby and pedestrians to drop refuse inside. Market squares, schools, hospitals, and other public institutions must have waste collection systems to enable inmates collect waste appropriately. When this is done, Zoom Lion together with the District Assemblies should regularly empty this bins within the day to avoid overfull and possible drop down of refuse. An effective task force or sanitation guards system should then be established to timely and frequently monitor and arrest any culprit of the law.

The one household per dust-bin when put in to law and enforced accordingly, the sanitation menace will be thing of the past. Two or more prosecutions of culprit will eventually change the mindset and attitude of every Ghana towards ensuring proper sanitation and environmental hygiene. It time for no sympathy, no compromise, and no giving up. We must stand up for the fight till we defeat the canker of poor environmental sanitation.

Abu Ibrahim Azebre
(Graduate in Community Dev't – UDS)
O240393109 Or [email protected]
28/10/2013