day 9

In the beginning I thought it was because of the start of the school year, but now I'm sure it's a daily fact. Every day, the first student of each class to arrive here starts to sweep the classroom, even moving the desks to do so. For sure this is nice to see, but the problem is that after lessons they always left a mess on the floor: pencil shavings, papers, food packaging, plastic bags, ... OK, they do clean the day after, but where does this garbage end up then? 

I learned this on one of the first days, when I had to throw something away. There's a big trash can near the kitchen and I was heading in that direction when Margaret shouted at me: "No, throw it there", pointing to a wide, yet shallow hole in the ground behind the urinal. Exactly, a hole, where the garbage is collected and then...burnt. This happens in almost all the yards of the village. No need to say how dangerous this could be, both for the health and for the environment, poisoning the ground and risking to set the forests on fire (it happens really often). 

Unfortunately the problem is nationwide caused by terrible government management. Solid waste is seen simply as something to be collected or to be made disappear and not as a potential resource. Just so you know, the companies working in this sector limit their activity to the collection of the waste (and just in a few main cities), and the only compost and recycling plant were shut down in 2014 due to unfulfilled financial commitments made by the government.

The problem is huge and, in a country where citizens have to struggle for almost everything they need to survive, heaps of waste piled up along the streets or accumulated in gutters are the last thing they will think of. 

I cannot do a lot other than teaching the kids not to leave anything on the floor after school and not to waste any pieces of paper, hoping that this will help them to take a step in the right direction together with the future of Ghanaian solid waste management.