![]() ![]() This public-private partnership officially remains the policy option today for dealing with the waste challenge (e.g. The grant also proposed a privatization policy which was expected to leverage private sector expertise and financial muzzle. ![]() The authorities’ inability to mobilize sufficient revenue to meet the embedded financial obligations in this strategy led to a pile-up of refuse in low-income areas, whose unplanned growth the authorities themselves had supervised, with every open space having been haphazardly developed into ‘residential accommodation’, including the use of containers and kiosks.ĨIn an attempt to improve on the quality of service delivery, which ushers us into the last epoch, the government of Ghana obtained funding from the Federal Republic of Germany for the Accra Waste Management Improvement project and established the Waste Management Department (WMD) in 1985. However, residents living in lower-income, high-density, unplanned areas were to dump waste at no cost at central points, to be collected into side loaders by labourers. Through prescriptive planning, the then high-income, low-density, planned areas-such as Laterbiokorshie, Ridge, and Kanda-had hand collectors using wheelbarrows to collect refuse from house-to-house in return for monthly fees. This technically marks the end of the first epoch of SWM trajectory, a period when waste was contextualised as a public good and when the institutional arrangements exhibited an all-inclusive participatory process.ħThe early 1970s ushered in the second epoch a phase during which the city authorities introduced two systems of refuse collection as part of an effort to streamline and respond to the challenges accompanying increasing population growth. By the late 1950s and shortly after independence in 1957, the existing infrastructure became stressed, resulting in a total breakdown of the only incinerator by 1970, which then led to the crude dumping of waste into quarry pits at Aborfu, Achimota, and Abeka in Accra. There were also environmental health inspectors who conducted house-to-house monitoring to check whether the laws on health and hygiene were being adhered to and when found culpable, offenders were prosecuted uncompromisingly 3.ĦFurther, few sites located on the outskirts of Accra served the purposes of final disposal until in 1929 when incinerators manned by a sanitary man who powered the incinerators into action were introduced. The authorities also promoted the use of sea water to occasionally disinfect drains in the European Town and the stagnant water spots in the Native enclaves. By 1925, while the European towns enjoyed a household collection services, public dustbins were introduced in the Native towns and emptied by means of two pushcarts managed by labourers. SWM – from colonial times to the presentĥAlthough the duality was the planning choice of the colonial administrators, their policy on sanitation considered waste as a ‘social good’ and avoided creating a sanitation nightmare, and by and large evinced inclusivity (not exclusivity). Largely overlooked are the effects of these dynamics on the urban fabric and its social structure, especially in questions related to the inequality of service provision and how that can inform future policies. Nonetheless, very limited studies have investigated the historical geographies of SWM strategies and their outcomes. Being a social problem, the menace of waste has neither spared the developed nor developing nations but the problem is more pervasive in developing economies, where the challenge is generating more pressure on existing environment and human health.ĢSince its inception, the SWM trail has been bumpy, exhibiting occasional transformations in tandem with changing volume and content of waste, as well as technology. Pointedly, increased population growth and economic development led not only to increased volumes of municipal waste significantly, but also its composition (Mieza et al., 2015). The campaign emerged when the need for environmental protection in spatial planning practices became imperative. 1The quest for an efficient solid waste management (SWM) system in Ghana has a colonial antecedent. ![]()
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