A Senior Public Health Engineer at the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, Godfred Fiifi Boadi has called on Ghanaians to use proper methods to dispose off plastic waste to avoid creating health problems for Ghanaians.
He said burning of plastic waste generates chemicals which are not only hazardous to human health, but also contaminates the air, soil and water resources.
Mr Boadi was speaking at a forum on water and sanitation held by the Ghana Wash Journalist Network (GWJN) at Dodowa in the Greater Accra Region.
Studies show that burning of plastic waste causes a lot of health problems for the human body.
A Senior Public Health Engineer at the Ministry of Sanitation and Water Resources, Godfred Fiifi Boadi said the 2021 Population and Housing Census data from the Ghana Statistical Service (GSS), indicates that more than 1.89 million households, representing 23.5 percent practice incineration of waste as compared to 10.7 percent in 2010.
He, therefore, called for proper disposal of waste to avoid derailing the vigorous efforts by stakeholders to achieve the SDG 13, which focuses on the urgent need to combat climate change and its impacts and the SDG 3, which aims at achieving universal health for all by 2030.
Mr Boadi said, though more needs to be done, some successes have been chalked up.
The Coordinator for Ghana Wash Journalist Network (GWJN), Justice Lee Adoboe noted that issues of sanitation are broad charging members to focus their reportage on all the aspects to ensure a clean environment.