Increasingly, when I’m away from my bedroom, I feel like a rat. If you’re an Accra resident, you must be feeling that way too. But we’re not rats so why are we being given the rat-smoke treatment? After all, rats are candidates to be smoked out of holes for soup or placed on sorry crucifixes to be paraded for sale by roadsides. Where are we supposed to go after we’ve been smoked out of Accra? To the cemetery – frothing at the mouth with smoke-filled lungs!
I want to see my insides, specifically my oesophagus all the way into my lungs. I also want to see the insides of Police Officers who spend hours by the roadside to direct traffic (and for bonus, collect petty bribes), and of our children who literally live by busy roadsides selling whatever they lay hands on. With the rampant smoke inhalation, our insides can’t be pretty. Most likely, there are multi-coloured blotches, bumps and scar tissues here and there. Our own country is killing us softly, with toxic smoke.
There are two major sources of toxic smoke: emissions from smoke-haemorrhaging vehicles and the indiscriminate burning of an odd-medley of garbage. They are both illegal acts, according to AMA bye-laws. But we flout the rules not caring a hoot because the rules are not enforced. Just collect your garbage and torch it; no one will stop you. Or, like pulling off a trigger, drive your smoke-puffing vehicle and zoom off, even by police officers, and you will be let off. Will these lawless, criminal acts go on forever? Accra is transforming very fast, but in ways which do not make sense. Accra is a dysfunctional city.
Here are some frightening facts about toxic smoke. It has harmful effects on human health and the environment. Vehicular smoke emissions and the burning of garbage, especially man-made substances like plastics, rubber and foam-type disposable containers (‘take-away’ food trays and cups) release toxins into the atmosphere. Some of these chemicals are absorbed into the body through the skin and nostrils. Smoke not meant for humans therefore make grand entrance, unhindered, to find resting places in our bodies.
The repercussions from an accumulation of toxins in the human body are many. For instance, they can be passed on to unborn babies. Some settle in water-ways and on crops, and get into our food. An online fact sheet of the Women in Europe for a Common Future (WECF) states that such toxins increase the risk of heart disease, cause rashes, trigger off headaches, damage the nervous system, kidney and liver, and affect the reproductive and development system.
Enters Dr Edith Clarke of the Environmental Health unit of the Ghana Health Services. She maintains that the garbage we burn emits persistent organic pollutants like carbon and sulphur dioxide which remain in the environment for several years. Persistent means that like rascals, these chemicals are stubborn, determined, relentless and ruthless. Once they enter the human body, they stay put until they do whatever damage they have the potency to cause. These pollutants cause cancer and aggravate respiratory ailments like pneumonia, asthma and bronchitis. Scary stuff!
A 2008 US study found that air pollutants from vehicle smoke fumes mimic the damaging effects of cigarette smoke in humans. Non-smokers could therefore develop tobacco-related diseases like lung cancer. So for breathing in these pollutants, we are at risk for cardio-pulmonary and many other not-so-nice diseases.
Since as a country we don’t plan to make a journey into outer space anytime soon, messily sending our smoke into the atmosphere might be our own nauseous way of touching the hallowed face of God. Our many high-octane Christian pretenders should ponder over this: Does God appreciate our smoke to mess up the stunning firmament of His throne upstairs? Definitely not!
Enters King David School at Teshie. The photograph on this page was taken on Friday, November 7, 2008 at 9:45 am. Take a close look at the actions in the photograph. There are more than forty children in the 4-10 year age-bracket. About 20 of them were playing football with one teacher refereeing the match. A heap of typical Ghanaian garbage – plastics, paper, leaves and odd-assortments – was burning close to the play-ground, emitting apparently over-powering toxic smoke.
Two other teachers are relaxed under a lush green tree nearby, in a conversation posture, oblivious to the looming smoke inhalation danger. These teachers are adults and must know better than to expose themselves and the children under their supervision to this frightening environmental sanitation hazard. What would King David of bible days, the obvious inspiration of the name of this school, do/say? He’ll dance butt-naked, in wild protest!
We patiently await complaints from owners/proprietors of King David School that reference to them in this article is damaging to their image. How about the toxic dangers the school exposes to the children? The potential ailments that might kill these innocent kids in future because of today’s toxicity they are inhaling will be attributed to wicked grandmothers and grandaunts and other older woman in their general neighbourhood! Oh, the misery of womanhood!
Fact: we are all at risk. Even the privileged few who ride in air conditioned vehicles with glass windows tightly rolled up have good amounts of smoke sneaking in through the natural holes of the vehicles. The smoke freely makes its way into their widely-open African nostrils. The other day, I saw a police officer at Tetteh Quarshie Interchange with a handkerchief over his nose. Lesson: we should all cover our noses in Accra as a survival strategy. No one is safe.
So I’ve also adopted smoke management strategies when riding in a vehicle in Accra with car windows open. I place a pack of tissue paper or a clean handkerchief over my nose. Periodically, I hurriedly hold my breath when I see a puff of smoke suddenly and freshly released from a moving vehicle nearby. But periodically, I get caught in shock-and-awe smoke-puff kill-me-quick situations with no tissue paper or handkerchief. When that happens, I become a full sucker of vehicle fumes and roadside garbage burning smoke.
Not that the handkerchief/tissue saves me from smoke inhalation. At best, it sieves the smoke and gives me a false feeling that I’ve out-smarted the smoke. This is not an effective strategy so I’ve cranked up a more sophisticated but ridiculous method. Soon, I’ll carry clean face towels and a flask filled with fresh water. Periodically, I’ll wet a towel and place it on my pint-sized nose. After a while of passing through Accra, I’ll abandon the polluted towel and replace it with another freshly wet towel. Or, I’ll use nose masks. This could become a fashion statement in Accra! We should all wear nose masks like smog-filled Beijing during last year’s Olympic Games in China.
But the EPA and AMA could save us from ourselves by adopting several strategies. One of them should be to set up a toll-free phone system for the public to send reports of registration numbers of smoking vehicles and information on neighbours who burn garbage by either text message or phone calls. Such vehicles must be chased off our roads and garbage burners must be accosted immediately by ‘Boola Police.” Fine idea? You bet, but implementation will fizzle out just like toxic smoke in our nostrils.
dorisdartey@yahoo.com
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