Sanitation Group Update

7-1-09

We have, admittedly, only been in Ghana for a few days, and we have yet to go anywhere besides Accra and Kumasi, but it seems as though sanitation is an issue of little concern. Every spare foot of land has some form of litter on it. Also, observing the reactions people give to such things as throwing a wrapper on the ground seems to lead to the conclusion that the citizens of Kumasi do not care about placing trash in a receptacle or are simply unaware of its image; perhaps it is not a bad thing in their eyes, but instead just the normal environment.

On the other hand, recycling is a big part of Ghanaian human works, especially glass bottles. These are collected and reused over and over again as way to save money and resources.

Perhaps it is a matter of age, though—when we bought the SIM cards for our phones, Emmanuel carelessly let the plastic wrapper they came in fall through his fingers. But Saundra, one of Emmanuel’s students, threw away her garbage in one of the yellow bins. Perhaps it’s a matter of availability, for Saundra was by one and Emmanuel was not. It’s something that we will have to determine, but even now it is clear that sanitation is not a priority.

However, given that signs are posted around the streets of the city stating— Keep Ghana clean. Please do not litter. –the conclusion that people are unaware is most likely imaginary. Certainly, there are signs everywhere urging people to keep Ghana beautiful by not littering, but these signs are most commonly ignored. There are yellow garbage bins here and there in Kumasi, but these are insignificant compared to the masses of trash that clog the gutters or form unsightly piles by the roadside. We will be taking photographs of the areas with litter, including areas around the aforementioned signs, and plan on discussing/interviewing several people about the situation to develop a clearer sense of why the problem is occurring. Until then we cannot be sure how far we can go with are education on trash disposal and recycling.

7-2-09

Continuing the excursion throughout Kumasi, we managed to take some pictures and make some new contacts within KNUST faculty; Professor Jackson was supposed to be one of them, but he was recently hospitalized, and therefore, taking a couple days off. The areas with trash seem to be near congestion and places of business, as the Campus seemed to have very little litter in comparison to downtown. We will look into this Saturday or Sunday.

Note to those in the USA:
This is from the perspective of students (Jon and I) who are used to a very different environment. So if anything above sounds cynical or negative in anyway, it's more due to our reaction, having never been in this environment before, than what the actual situation is like. We will try to look at the positives from here on out but the project itself is looking at problems in the communities, so forgive us if it lacks positives in every post.

Thanks