The Kassena Nankana Municipal Assembly (KNMA) has identified indiscriminate plastic waste disposal and insanitary conditions as a financial burden to the Assembly that needs stakeholders support.
Mr Pious Akambe, the Municipal Environmental Health Officer who disclosed this, said about 34 per cent of solid waste generated in the Municipality was collected, leaving the remaining 72 percent unattended to.
He was speaking at a ceremony held by the Elisha Preparatory School in Navrongo to mark the ‘Plastic Bag Action Day.’
The pupils picked littered plastic waste and presented a proposal on ways to stop littering to the Kassena Nankana Municipal Assembly.
The programme was put together by Madam Christine Wassmer, a Literature Lecturer from Switzerland, with support from the school to inculcate the habit of personal hygiene and environmental cleanliness among the pupils.
Mr Akambe stated that though the Municipality was making giant strides in reducing the plastic menace, it generated a total of 22,780 metre cube of solid waste in 2016, with 75 per cent being plastics.
It decreased to 2,600 metres cubes with 80 per cent plastics in 2017.
This phenomenon, he indicated, was unfortunate noting that the state of environmental sanitation in the area was disturbing and gave cause for concern.
Mr Akambe said it was important government galvanised support to provide the needed financial resources, equipment and logistics to support the assemblies to make the clean Ghana campaign work.
He also urged the citizenry to play their part to make it a success.
The campaign, which is being implemented by the Ministry of Water Resources and Sanitation, is expected to consolidate existing national policies on sanitation to change the attitude of Ghanaians regarding proper sanitation practices.
The Municipal Health Officer called on Ghanaians to inculcate good moral values and proper sanitation practices in their children to help transform the society.
The Assembly, he noted, would collaborate effectively with the various courts as well as traditional and religious leaders in the municipality to enforce bye-laws on sanitation and prosecute such cases to help protect the environment.
Touching on Open Defecation (OD), Mr Akembe pointed out that 94 per cent of the citizenry in the Municipality practised OD representing 5,167.36kg, equivalent to 103.4 bags of faeces daily.
He said OD was becoming alarming in some parts of the Municipality putting residents at risk of sanitation related diseases such as cholera, diarrhoea and typhoid among others.
He said open defecation was largely an attitudinal problem despite the fact that private/public toilet facilities in the municipality were inadequate.
In that regard, he admonished all to support the Open Defecation Free (ODF) campaign that sought to intensify sensitisation in all communities in Ghana to engage people in collective discussions and decisions to stop open defecation by 2030.
Madam Wassmer, the initiator of the event, was full of praise for the bold efforts by the pupils to rid the area of plastic waste by engaging in sound environmental practices.
She seconded the initiative by pupils for the Assembly to institute some by-laws that will enable users of plastics to pay more, thereby, forcing them to resort to using biodegradable bags for shopping instead of plastic bags.
However, Madam Margret Pokaa, a Teacher and a resident of Navrongo who interacted with the Ghana News Agency, stressed the need for all plastic products to have oxobio-degradable addictives in their products.
She called on the Ministry to strictly monitor plastic manufacturing companies to ensure that they adhered to the use of oxobiodegradables to reduce micron levels in the flexible plastics.