Ghana is having a toxic love affair with plastics

Ghana has a troubled relationship with single-use non-biodegradable plastics; the ones we barely use but toss as waste into wherever. As if we’ve sold our conscience and soul to plastics, we’ve allowed it to gain a grip over our lives and we can’t seem to shake it off. We’re on a path of destruction with the continuous use of these things that do not melt to become one with nature. It appears that we would rather prefer to hold on to this dysfunctional toxic love affair with plastics until they destroy us. We’re so much in love with the convenience and money-making opportunities of plastics to the point that our leaders are eager to delay filing for divorce from the little monsters.

Enters ‘From plastic waste to cash’ campaign:

Last Friday May 18, the Vice President John Dramani Mahama sweet-talked Ghana about plastics, contrary to his previous position of a possible ban. He was at one of those speech-making events. This time, it was to launch a programme with the theme, “From plastic waste to cash.” In his speech, he



cautioned us all, according to a GNA statement, “......that government would introduce stringent measures against the production of plastic materials if no substantial improvement in attitude was recorded after six months of nationwide public education on its menace.” Fair enough. We’ve been cautioned! Or maybe it’s just a sad joke?

In effect, the VP told us, Oh, let’s wait small before we take a bold decision to ban plastics. After all, people can make money from plastics! We should give our many unemployed youth the chance to collect plastic waste from gutter-to-gutter and exchange it for cash to realise their own Better Ghana Agenda! What VP Mahama should have said in plain words is: You see, folks – this is an Election Year so we must necessarily delay taking a bold decision until later later later, if ever! Ghana can survive choking on plastics – a little longer. Votes are too precious to sacrifice for mere plastics.

We all know the dangers of our actions:

You don’t have to be a scientist to know that if we continue on this path of mindless use of non-biodegradable plastics, the future of the 238,540 square kilometres finite size of our and will be nothing but bleak. The President of Ghana knows this. VP Mahama knows this. Former presidents Kufuor and Rawlings know this. The farmer knows this. The market woman knows this. The professor knows this. Engineers know this. AMA, KMA and all metropolitan, municipal and district assemblies know this. The Environmental Protection Agency knows this. The Ministry of Environment Science and Technology and its intelligent bold Minister Ms Hanny Sherry Ayittey know this.

Teachers know this. School children know this. Parents know this. Fishermen know this. Plastic bag sellers know this. Sachet water and plastic bag manufacturers and sellers know this. The unemployed unemployable quarter-baked literate youth know this. I know this. You, dear reader know this! The rich people who live in castle-like homes know this. Kayayee know this. The homeless and poor know this. The alcoholic soaked on ‘apketeshie’ kill-me-quick knows this. Ok, you get the point. We all know this!

We know that we’re doing wrong for Ghana. We know that it’s a wrong-headed act of national foolishness and that this act of commission with the continuous and indiscriminate use of non-bio-degradable plastics will result in ‘unprecedented’ destruction of our land; yet……yet….!

Last Sunday, I was in church and it was announced that three grown-up children of an elderly couple have all delivered babies. The congregation clapped; I sat confused, lost in thought and mused to my naughty myself, No wonder Ghana’s population continues to increase! The three new innocent entrants to Ghana must be busy now adding their own plastics and diapers that may not decompose long after those babies have become adults and departed this earth.

In World Bank-speak, our toxic love relationship with plastics is not sustainable. We cannot forever continue on this same path. Sooner or later, Ghana must go the bold sensible way of Rwanda that banned single-use plastics six years ago. Sustainability means that if you continue on the same path, at some point in time, sooner or later, something will have to give. I don’t know what will give. But I know and you know and we all know that something tangible will give way. The earth can take so much more of our non-biodegradable plastics.

We may have an insatiable appetite for single-use plastics that we toss into the earth mindlessly. But without being a scientist, it’s more than obvious that when we continue to dump something into the earth that the earth cannot chew, there’s no way the earth and sea and rivers will suddenly change their grand minds and decide to learn to chew or swallow plastics. Animals are choking on plastics. Fishes are choking on plastics. Plastics swim in the sea as if they’re fishes! Then, periodically, the sea vomits our plastic trash on shore and seems to say to humans, “Take your filthy indestructible monsters away!”

Without a doubt, this plastic campaign is short-sighted for standing on one leg. For something that is this much destructive, collecting them for cash is not enough. Multiple strategies must be employed in tandem. They should include reducing the use of non-biodegradable plastics, adopting alternatives when necessary; banning those that must be banned; promoting waste separation at the home front that is cued into the waste collection stream; and introducing a stiff enforcement regime even in a country that boldly displays indiscipline in all fronts.

Plastic ban must be an election issue:

But then this is an Election Year. Nothing bold and sensible will happen. But plastic ban must be made an issue for politicking. Every single vote will count on December 7. Dear reader, since I’ve no doubt that privately, you’re also alarmed and worried at the rate at which we’re dumping non-biodegradable plastics into mother-earth, look out for candidates and parties that come up with clear and decisive plans about what they’ll do with plastics.

Make this a condition for placing your precious thumb against their photographs/names on Election Day. Don’t vote for candidates who do not care a hoot about the frightening state of plastic garbage in Ghana. Use your thumb to say no to the creation of plastic cities, plastic towns, plastic villages, plastic farms, plastic rivers, plastic markets, plastic schools, and a plastic life style.

Meanwhile, we’ll wait and watch for November 18, the 6^th month anniversary of the launch of this intense public education campaign to turn plastic-waste-to-cash to measure its impact. Our eyes will not deceive us. We will know if our undisciplined bad selves have changed and we have less plastic waste in our gutters, by the roadsides, a reduction in the flying-saucer plastics; and if people are making money from collecting plastic waste, the little monsters.

The major problem with November 18, the evaluation point of the campaign, is that we will be 19 short over-heated nerve-racking heart-thumping days to the D-Day of December 7 General and Presidential Elections when the little matter of plastic waste and its potential to choke Ghana would be too inconsequential. It’s the earth and rivers and sea and gutters and roadsides that will suffer. Ouch!