By George Ofosu Oti
The general attitude to sanitation in Ghana is very bad; one that is nothing good to write home about. People in Ghana are known for indiscriminate dumping of waste materials in any place they can think of.
Almost all category of persons in Ghana are guilty of poor sanitation practices; children, young and old adults, hawkers, traders, illiterates and educated persons.
There is almost no street in Ghana that one is unlikely to find waste materials such as water sachet rubbers, empty cans or plastic bottles lying on the ground. A lot of gutters in Ghana are dirty and choked with plastic waste. It is important to know that such waste items did not just find themselves on the ground or in the gutters but were disposed off there by people. It seems to me that as a people we do not have a sense of environmental dignity; that is why we treat our environment so badly.
It is common to find passengers in long journey sprinter buses throw out of the moving bus empty water sachet rubbers onto the side of the road. Some questions such people need to ask themselves is: Who is going to clear the waste I have thrown out there? Is that place a dumping place for refuse? Is my action going to contribute to the cleanliness of the environment? If they are able to answer these questions, I believe they would know that throwing waste items out of moving buses is wrong.
I believe that a lot of people in Ghana seem to be blind to the fact that there are laws that protect the environment in Ghana. We have sanitation laws and bye-laws in Ghana but they are poorly or less strictly enforced. This is because our environmental and sanitation laws have a very feeble voice and so are unable to draw the attention of the general populace as compared to laws on crimes such as armed robbery and murder which everybody knows attracts very severe punishment.
To achieve a great improvement in the sanitation situation in Ghana, there needs to be a cross-cutting attitudinal change from society; from individuals, families, institutions, the formal and informal sectors and all stakeholders of sanitation. There is the need to take a new look at how people in Ghana view sanitation and the environment. The way people in Ghana view sanitation and the environment shows a lot in the way they handle sanitation and treat the environment.
Attitudinal change calls for new strategies in handling sanitation issues in Ghana. These strategies should focus on actions that aim to prevent bad sanitation practices including massive education on good sanitation practices, a review and evaluation of existing sanitation laws and stricter enforcement of sanitation laws.
Education on sanitation should be carried out at all levels of society. Educational programmes on environmental sanitation should be designed in such a way that it can reach the door steps of everyone so that no one can say that they are unaware that they have a duty to protect the environment through good sanitation practices.
The media will serve as a great tool in embarking on massive education on sanitation; TV, radio, radio information centres, newspapers and the internet. Using the media will ensure that almost every class of person is reached out to; the illiterate and educated persons, children and adults, high ranking and low ranking citizens or persons depending on the kind of media they access, are used to or are compatible with.
Government and private institutions should be made to develop internal programmes on sanitation education for their members of staff. This will be in furtherance of the goal of a nation-wide campaign on environmental sanitation.
The Ghana Education Service which is responsible for all educational institutions in Ghana should introduce compulsory subjects in sanitation at the basic and secondary levels of education in Ghana to help drive home the sanitation agenda. This subject should spell out the environmental sanitation laws in Ghana and the punishments for offenders enshrined in those laws.
I believe that the above discussed actions if undertaken will help arouse among Ghanaians a high level of consciousness on sanitation.
Law enforcement agencies and personnel should take their work seriously so that offenders of sanitation laws can be punished to serve as a deterrent to would-be offenders. People who dump little waste items such as sachet water rubbers, toffee wrappers, cans and empty plastic bottles in public should be fined heavily as a way of preventing or discouraging people from engaging in such acts.
I know the fight against bad sanitation practices is a difficult one. I wish to commend the current and previous government for their efforts in improving sanitation in Ghana. I further wish to call on the government to provide a lot of waste bins in public so that people can drop waste items like sachet rubbers and plastic bottles in them. Also, there is the need to introduce standard waste bins for all households at an affordable cost or for free so that people will not be forced to dump refuse in unapproved places.
