A fine new road is fast becoming a garbage dump
……………On University of Ghana lands
About year ago, a beautiful back-road was constructed to connect Legon-GIMPA to Haatso and its environs. With the University of Ghana campus road closed to road users (unless one pays a whopping annual fee of GH400), the new by-pass is a life-saver for those journeying to Haatso, Agbogba, Ashongman and the general neighbourhood towards Abokobi/Pantang and Pokuase. In this sprawling capital city of Accra, very good by-pass roads are in much need.
For several months after this backroad came into use, it was almost barren, with very few vehicles. It was one of the biggest new-road secrets in Accra and I prayed that the secret remained forever. But now the secret is out so traffic has increased on that road.
A BEAUTIFUL LAND GOING BAD
The area is very quiet. It is so quite that I avoid using it after dark. It is so quite that robbers harass motorists when the sunshine departs. Clearly, what people are unable to do with the sunshine, they hide out to do in the dark.
On one side of the road, there are residential properties. Located on the same side, there are also residential kiosks (I have seen people brush their teeth in the mornings!). But the other side of the road is a lush-green forest—the undeveloped property of the University of Ghana. This provides a serene environment, especially so since Accra is a fully built-up concrete jungle and we see little of fresh nature.
With the increase in traffic and usage of that road has come a disturbing and very visible phenomenon: garbage dumping. It started with a little pile of garbage by the roadside, which was probably dumped by someone in the neighbourhood. Then, other residents considered it as a normal thing to do: a bucket load here, a bucket load there. In no time, the little three-wheeler borla trucks began to dump garbage they had collected from homes for which they had been paid.
I use that road often in the daytime and have never witnessed the dumping of refuse in broad daylight. I however see freshly dumped garbage in the mornings. I've therefore concluded that the dumping occurs after night falls. The quantity of fresh garbage suggests that vehicles intentionally target the area to dump.Over just a period of one year, several dumping sites have been created. This week alone, I counted a dozen of such borla piles. Some of the garbage piles are extensive and spread inwards.
About two years ago, a similar situation occurred opposite the main entrance of Legon. A garbage dump grew as individuals and trucks dumped garbage along the main road for all to see. It was such an ugly sight in plain view for a while until public condemnation caused the Legon authorities to take charge of the very bad situation. The spot has now been fenced and converted into a beautiful garden.
PANTANG SUFFERED A SIMILAR FATE
The problem with this fresh and rapidly growing borla site is that it is occurring on a back-road, on a vast stretch of barren land, and on the blind-side of the University and the district assembly. If this borla growth is not curbed soon, in a few years’ time, a garbage mountain would be created that will stretch over a large area.
To curb this desecration, the University will soon need to construct a fence-wall around its property. If the University is in doubt, they should visit the Pantang borla site. I bore witness to the creation of that Pantang borla. I still have fresh memories of a day in 2006 or thereabouts when I saw a bucket-load of garbage dumped in the curve of an open lush-green field—what has now become the gigantic super-structure of Pantang borla. This eyesore is the equivalence of a two or three storey buildings.
With the constant burning of garbage, the entire neighbourhood is engulfed in smoke at all times. This smoky scenery will be visible in satellite images as part of the Accra landscape.
Is it that as a people, some of us do not like nice things? It appears that vacant plots of land easily become garbage dumping grounds. My brother-friend Kofi Howard maintains that if we dare leave any hole vacant, it will be filled with borla! By that, we desecrate the holy and convert holy places into the profane.
Who is responsible for maintaining the Legon backroad? Interestingly, police officers stationed nearby, at the intersection of Legon's and GIMPA, do one thing only: regulate traffic. They appear blind to the looming environmental and sanitation disaster, which is just a walking distance away from them. Or they just don't care.
THE LARGER PROBLEM WITH GARBAGE DISPOSAL
The people who have targeted the Legon backroad as a garbage dumping site do it because they can. Undoubtedly, they know that it is wrong; but they do so anyway. They have no fear of repercussions. They know that they will get away with it. Or, they do it because it is too much trouble to access the legitimate borla dumping sites of the city so they break the law as a short-cut to doing their work?
The city of Accra, with an estimated population of close to five million human beings, does not have legitimate garbage disposal sites. The word borla is a corruption of boiler. I have learned that in the olden days during the colonial era, garbage was incinerated. At the entrance of communities (villages and towns), there was a contraption to burn the garbage. Over time, boiler became borla.
But today, in our civilization, we just dump borla. In this stage of our civilization, we have not figured out what to do to solve our solid waste disposal challenges. There have been some efforts but we are far from solving this pressing national problem. In the absence of a solution, we are scattering our garbage.
The rains expose us. Increasingly, Accra can barely handle a 30-minutes rainfall without experiencing wicked floods. Part of the reason for this unfortunate and dangerous flooding situation is that some of our borla end up in drains. Now, a new road is also exposing us, with garbage piling up slowly but surely on our blind-side. It is as if we are waiting until a garbage mountain is created behind Legon.
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