Ghana is known to be one of the countries with a high rate of plastic pollution in the world today. Why because today, we don’t really have systems in place to recycle these recyclable plastics. Growing up, we had one big dustbin in our house for waste disposal. We would dispose our left over food, bottles, and any kind of waste we had in the house.
Every week, the company in charge of waste in Ghana, zoomlion would send their trucks to come and collect the refuse from various communities for disposal. At the disposal site, there’s no sort of sorting out of the refuse. They just heap everything up and burn. With this, most of the rubbish is no able to burn because there are different kinds of stuff in there. Spoilt food, vegetables, bottle, cans, plastic waste, electronic waste and many more. And as common sense would make us know, there’s no way all these stuff can burn together.
I’ve been to other countries and I’ve seen how waste is being disposed off there. Once , I went to a mall to get something and there was a place to drop plastic bottles, cans, food packs, paper bags and many more. At some stations too, you were even given money for bringing in your waste and keeping them in the right compartments for recycling. And these systems put in place in these countries reflected in their society as everything was in place. You don’t see rubbish flying around the place and all of that.
Here in Ghana, I wouldn’t say we recycle stuff that much,generally here because the only time I have recycled stuff was when I traveled outside. When it comes to waste disposal, everything is just disposed off together with no sorting out to even recycle stuff that ate recyclable. Even with plastic bottle and paper bags from these drink and water companies, they write on the cans and bottle that they’re to be recycled. But at the end of the day, these plastic wastes end up at the refuse dump instead of being taken back to the companies they came from to be recycled for use again. I guess this is because most of the companies don’t even have measures in place to recycle their containers and packaging materials.
Looking from a different perspective, I’d say the youth of today have taken it upon themselves to recycle the waste in our country. Each day, we see young one coming with startups to turn waste into prosperity for our country. Myself, I’m one of them as I’ve worked on so many projects to recycle waste in my country for the betterment of my community.
However, there’s not much support coming in sometimes for the youth when it comes to these startups who are into recycling of stuff in our country. But I’d say the youth is doing their best when it comes to recycling and the government is also supporting in their own way possible. Just recently, one startup I know of which is into recycling waste into something useful was able to secure a huge contract which would in the long run help them grow their startup while empowering others in their communities.
all images belong to me.