Waste Management and Environmental Sustainability in Ghana: Challenges and Strategies of the Ketu North Assembly in Managing Waste

Abstract

Solid waste management has become a huge burden to most developing countries. The hard and harsh reality is that most developing countries are overwhelmed by the volume of waste they generate. Consequently, waste management is increasingly getting policy attention in most emerging countries. These countries have neither the technical expertise nor the financial resources or facilities for confronting this challenge.  Academics seeking to bemoan the fate of waste management in intellectual discourse draw an emblematic parallel between waste as a resource in the developed countries and waste as a burden in developing countries. This article examines the challenges confronting Ketu District Assembly in managing waste and assesses the strategies used in doing so. The major objective of the study was to analyse the degree of sustainability of waste management practices in Ketu North District. Information was gathered from the field through face-to-face interviews and through the administering of questionnaire among waste management practitioners and producers of waste. The research revealed that the major challenges militating against sustainable waste management in Ketu North District are; inability of the Ketu South Assembly to re-cycle waste, rising cost of haulage and difficulties in acquiring land for final disposal sites, environmental pollution and its attendant health hazards, inadequate communal waste containers in the communities, inadequate litter bins for commuters at vantage points and poor waste management attitudes. In this 21^st century where waste is considered a resource, Ketu District should be in the position to make gains from the management of solid waste rather than allowing it to become a burden that would continuously drain the District’s meagre resources. The study recommends the provision of more communal waste containers and litter bins to promote waste separation and harnessing it as a resource for development and periodic education of the people to help address poor attitude to waste management. The article further recommends re-cycling of waste with undiminished intensity until poor attitudes are righted and waste becomes a resource for generating employment, rather than a drain on the meagre resources of the District Assembly.

Key words: waste management, environmental sustainability, solid waste pollution, health hazards.