The La-Dadekotopon Municipal Assembly (LaDMA) has begun the process to establish a waste transfer station to manage waste generated in the municipality and also curtail the indiscriminate disposal of waste.

One of the major challenges confronting the municipality is poor sanitation, as residents litter gutters and other open places with all manner of waste, including plastics, which eventually find their way into the sea.

The LaDMA Chief Executive, Mr Solomon Kotey-Nikoi, said the absence of a transfer station in the municipality had been a major challenge for the tackling of the waste menace.

He explained that the residents preferred dumping their waste into gutters due to the high cost incurred in employing the service of waste disposal trucks, which travel as far as Kpone to dispose of refuse collected from the municipality.

Clean-up

Mr Kotey-Nikoi made these statements at a clean-up exercise last Saturday at the Laboma Beach near Accra to mark World Clean Day.

The exercise was organised by Let’s Do it Ghana, an environmentally focused group, in collaboration with the Ghana Wildlife Society, Street Sense Organisation and the Australia High Commission, among others.

“Because we have no transfer station here, residents choose the easy option of dumping their waste into the gutter. It is necessary that we also get a transfer station which will solve 70 per cent of our sanitation problems and make it cheap for households to dispose their waste,” Mr Kotey-Nikoi said.

He said the assembly was in discussions with the traditional council for a land to site the transfer station.

Sanitation bye-laws

He indicated that LaDMA had intensified the enforcement of sanitation bye-laws to address the indiscriminate disposal of waste in the municipality.

The Australian High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr Gregory Andrews, called for an end to littering and charged the media to regularly sensitise the public to the dangers of pollution.

The Team Lead of Let’s Do it Ghana, Ms Kate Opoku, said that the exercise was undertaken by 180 countries to raise awareness on the problem of pollution and the need to save the earth from further destruction.

She called for a proper waste management system and attitudinal change by Ghanaians to tackle environmental pollution.

The Assistant Conservation Education Officer of the Ghana Wildlife Society, Ms Joana Antwi, urged local authorities to strictly enforce sanitation bye-laws and prosecute offenders to serve as deterrent to others. #GraphicCleanGH