Our Polluted Reality: When Will It End?

It’s not news that the streets of most of our major cities are polluted with waste. Step out now and you’ll have a polythene bag over your head or on your shoe in the next few minutes. It might sound funny but it’s really not because the rate at which pollution , especially plastic pollution is rising in Ghana is very alarming.

We’ve been thought about pollution in school, at home and even in our communities and we all know the negative effects of it. Yet, we still end up polluting our cities and communities. Today , our streets are full of refuse and our gutters are choked. Yet we still wonder why there’s flooding when it rains. I’ve been to other countries and throughout my time there, I never saw so much rubbish around. The worst you can see is some cigarettes on the floor or some sweets. But in my homeland, it’s a different story.

People carry heaps of refuse from their houses just to dump them along the streets and even behind the houses of others. How sad. But, this isn’t even what is killing us today. One thing that I believe is the major cause of pollution in Ghana is our mentality. We have preached and preached about keeping the country clean for decades now. The people started to blame the government for not putting measures in place to ensure the country was clean. The government then stepped in and provided dust bins at every corner of the country and even employed people to sweep the streets and markets every day and night. Yet, we the people still aren’t holding on to our end of the bargain.

You drink your sachet of water and instead of dumping it in the refuse can next to you, you decide to drop it on the floor. The next person also does the same and the cycle continues. Then, at the end of the day, the cleaners are not able to clear all the refuse because you choose to litter at your big age. Simply put, we don’t practice what we preach and we don’t want to be catalysts for the change we want to see.

To add to all the measure put in place by the government , more rules were being put in place to make sure citizens did the right thing. It even got to a time when people were being fined for littering yet here we are, back to square one. I’d say it’s gotten a bit better recently as the youth is starting to refrain from such acts. But until we all take the initiative to do the right thing I don’t know when the issue of pollution in Ghana will be a thing of the past.The country is suffering day and night due to the effects of our actions and until we take the initiative to do better, we will keep on struggling with the issue of pollution.Hopefully, it happens faster than we can imagine.

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all images belong to me.

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