Only One Dumping Site for the Whole of Accra – Waste Managers Warn of Looming Sanitation Disaster

Accra’s worsening waste management crisis has reached a critical stage, with the Executive Secretary of the Environmental Service Providers Association, Ama Oforiwaa Antwi, warning that the capital is relying on just one final disposal site to serve its growing population.

Speaking of refuse management in the metropolis on Kessben TV’s PUNCH show, Oforiwaa described the lack of transfer stations and final disposal sites as one of the biggest obstacles to effective waste collection and disposal.
“Our major challenges are transfer stations and final disposal sites. We should be able to segregate the waste before conveying the remains to the final dumping site,” she said.

According to her, the absence of the necessary infrastructure is fueling illegal dumping across communities, with waste ending up in drains and polluting the environment.
“If we don’t get those infrastructures, it boils down to irresponsible and unapproved dumping ending up in drains and pollutes the environment. There are many illegal dumps all over our cities and it’s worrisome,” she stressed.

Oforiwaa warned that the situation poses a major public health threat, particularly during the rainy season when flooding increases, the risk of disease outbreaks.

“When the flood began, the Health Ministry cautioned about possible disease outbreaks. If we don’t provide conducive places of final dumping, refuse collectors may find their own way of dumping, resulting in what we face now in our communities,” she noted.

She emphasized that waste management remains the constitutional responsibility of government and cited global sanitation targets that require improved waste management systems.
“All refuse, according to our Constitution, remains the property and responsibility of the government to manage. According to the Sustainable Development Goal Six, the government must achieve proper sanitation by 2031,” she stated.

Oforiwaa further explained that Ghana’s environmental sanitation policy allows up to 80 percent of waste management services to be outsourced to the private sector, leaving metropolitan and municipal assemblies to manage the remaining 20 percent.
With the entire Accra metropolis reportedly depending on a single dumping site at Adepa in the Nsawam-Addoagyiri enclave, she urged the government to invest in waste infrastructure and leverage its 24-hour economy agenda to address the growing sanitation crisis.
The government, she insisted, should resource stakeholders to use the 24-hour economy to resolve it. Once the population increases, the waste increases as well,” she said.