More than 300 environmentalists in Ghana on Saturday joined their counterparts across 191 countries to mark World Clean-Up Day, with a call on citizens to recycle, segregate and properly dispose of their waste.
They also appealed to state institutions to enforce sanitation bye laws to discourage indiscriminate littering and pollution which are destroying the environment, especially the sea.
The Day is an annual global social action programme that unites millions of volunteers, governments, and organisations worldwide to tackle the global waste problem with the aim of building a sustainable world.
Now in its fifth year, the sanitation campaign, coordinated by ‘Let’s Do It! World’, an international organisation, is marked on the third Saturday of September, with clean-ups organised at designated areas.
This year’s commemoration in Ghana was held at the Laboma Beach in Accra, where ‘Let’s Do It! Ghana’, the country office of the global campaign coordinating body, and its partners, led a three-hour clean –up.
The partners included Pernod Ricard Ghana, CMA-CGM Ghana, Ghana Wildlife Society, Allianz, Dansworld International Services, Zoomlion Ghana Limited and Street Sense Organisation.
Accompanied by music, the volunteers, who wore personnel protective equipment, collected loads of waste and segregated them into sacks, tricycles, and waste trucks for easy disposal and recycling.
In an interview with The Ghanaian Times, the Country Leader of ‘Let’s Do It! Ghana’, Ms Kate Opoku, said their appeals to the public and the state were imperative because pollution was harmful to the health and environment.
“Many plastics seen at the beach were not generated here, but upstream and rains wash them into the oceans and threaten marine life. The plastics pollute the seas and endanger aquatic species.
“People should learn to be responsible for the waste they create. Let’s change our attitudes and stop indiscriminate littering and pollution to save the planet,” she said.
The Sustainability and Responsibility Manager of Pernod Ricard Ghana, Ms Eunice Osei Tutu, said people should rethink the use of products they purchase.
“If we are buying something, let us think and ask ourselves if we actually need them. When we are done using them let us think if we can reuse them or repurpose them before we dispose them.
“When disposing them we need to segregate them to make it easier for plastic recycling projects ongoing in the country. Let us rethink how we use materials, let’s recycle, let’s segregate, and let’s reduce waste”, she said.
BY JONATHAN DONKOR
