Sanitation

Liquid Waste

The Assembly has the overall responsibility of ensuring proper disposal of liquid waste. It does so through the Environmental Health and Sanitation Unit.

The 2010 Population Census indicates that, majority of households dispose off their liquid waste onto public walkways leading to the deplorable nature of the already existing bad roads in the Municipality. Investigations from a survey conducted by the Environmental Health and Sanitation Unit in 2015 indicated that out of every twenty-five households, eight houses disposed their liquid waste directly into major drains/gutters, while other methods like drainage into a pit (soak away) were used by some households. Only few houses use the sewerage system that is less than 10 percent.

Further inspections revealed that most of the bridges and culverts currently responsible for conducting waste water are not spacious enough to contain the large volumes of water passing underneath and thereby causing floods. There is therefore the need for complete overhaul of our road network to be able to reduce the ordeal people experience whenever it rains. Proportionally, there is only a slight difference between urban and rural localities method of waste disposal in relation to liquid waste onto compound and liquid waste onto the street/outside in the Municipality. It is worth mentioning that, the Assembly does not have a cesspool emptier for managing liquid waste in the Municipality. As a result, the individuals engage the services of private liquid waste management services providers.

Public & Domestic Toilets

Due to the rural and urban nature of the Municipality, both public and domestic toilet facilities play a key role in managing sanitation.

According to the 2010 population and housing census, more than one-half (51%) of households in the municipality lacked domestic toilet facilities. Of the 51% of the households which lacked toilet facilities, 23.9% of households were practicing open defecation and 27.1% were using public toilets. The Municipality currently has 64 commercial toilet facilities in which 51 are privately owned and 13 are built by the Assembly or constructed under the HIPIC project. Out of the 13 facilities, 5 are located at Kpone, 4 are located at KAMSBERG and the remaining 4 are located at ONSBAC whiles ZEKAS however has none. Out of the 51 privately owned commercial toilets, 25 are located at ZEKAS, 19 are located at KAMSBERG and 7 are located at Kpone and the rest are located at KAMSBEG. ONSBAC however has no privately owned commercial toilet as shown in Table 1.13 below.

The Environmental Health and Sanitation Unit through their routine inspections and health education, ensures strict adherence to the hygiene principles to prevent outbreaks of fecal oral diseases like cholera in the municipality. The Assembly is ready to increase the number of public toilets at all the Zonal councils however, non-availability of land has become a major limitation and resulted in the low numbers of public toilets. Even though landlords are encouraged to construct toilets in their homes, more public toilets are needed to be constructed in our communities to wipe out the issue of open defecation in our Municipality. The Assembly can also seek for assistance from the GAMA project to help people build toilet in their homes at a subsidized price.

Solid waste

About 80% of residents of the Municipality dispose off solid waste mostly through the public container dumping system. Communal containers have been sited within the communities where residents can access to safely dump all solid waste mostly generated at the household level. However, there is the need to procure more communal containers to augment the current limited services of the available ones. This is so because about 20% of the population are adamant to dump at the communal container sites with several claims of either the containers are always full or absent from the collection points most of the time. As a result of this, there are pockets of unauthorized dumping sites in the Municipality which mostly lead to the breeding of wild reptiles, vectors and other vermin that could lead to the outbreak of communicable diseases.

The Assembly needs to procure adequate communal containers and place them at vantage points to prevent people from creating unauthorized dumping sites as well as educating the public to keep their surroundings clean. The Assembly can also partner with the private sector to introduce the door to door solid waste collection in the Municipality. Although the Assembly has engaged the services of Zoomlion in disposing off solid waste, it has not engaged it in the door to door household waste collection.

The Municipality has a land fill site that is currently serving the Ashaiman municipality, Ningo-Prampram District, Tema and Accra Metropolitan Assemblies. It should be stated here that the land fill site situated in the Municipality is being managed by Tema Metropolitan Assembly and Zoomlion. Meanwhile, the stench emanating from this site is nothing to write home about with some leachate overflow is an eyesore. The Assembly has taken the issue up with the Regional Minister and it is anticipated that the problem will be solved in favour of the Assembly. The good news however is that, the case has been won in the Assembly’s favour even though the management has not yet been changed.

However, consultative works have begun for feasibility studies to be carried out on the Kpone landfill site to assess whether the solid waste at the site could be converted into renewable energy to assist the people. When this is achieved, the Municipality would be free from the voluminous chunks of solid waste that are currently dumped indiscriminately.

Industrial Waste

The Municipality is housing a myriad of industries and therefore has to ensure the disposal of the
various type of waste generated by these industries. Through the help of the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA), the Municipality has been able to classify these industries as;

a) Food, and beverage
b) Textile, weaving apparel and leather goods
c) Paper products and other and other goods
d) Petroleum refinery
e) Chemical products other than petroleum
f) Cement and non-metallic mineral products
g) Non-ferrous metal basic industries
h) Iron and steel products
i) Electrical equipment and appliances
j) Cutlery and other non-ferrous metal products

A good number of these industries have procured communal containers to store their solid waste before they are hauled to the landfill site by waste management experts assigned for the Municipality. Meanwhile periodic inspections are usually conducted by the Environmental Health Department of the Municipality to ensure strict compliance to environmental sanitation regulations. Again, the EPA has succeeded in ensuring that most of these industries treat their waste before discharging them into the environment. The Assembly has put in measures to ensure that all industries currently operating within its jurisdiction dispose-off their waste in an environmental-friendly manner to safeguard the health of inhabitants.

Food and Meat Hygiene

The Municipality has a slaughter slab and a kraal market where animals like cattle, sheep and goats are slaughtered and sold to other sister assemblies in the Greater Accra region. There are routine inspections conducted by both staff of the Environmental and Veterinary departments to ensure the safe slaughtering and release of wholesome meat for public consumption. However, the area where the meat is prepared for the market is vulnerable and susceptible to infections. Plans are currently underway to transform the slab and kraal market into a modern abattoir in order to modernize it into a business center to serve the people of the Municipality and region at large.

The Environmental Health Unit of the Assembly is faced with some challenges that hinders their
operations. These are:
a) Lack of logistics and vehicle
b) Inadequate communal containers at the various Area Councils
c) Inadequate public toilet facilities
d) Lack of cesspool emptier for liquid waste disposal
e) Lack of skip and compact trucks

Water

About 75% of the population have access to either pipe borne or borehole in the Municipality. Accessibility to potable water is not much of a problem in the Municipality. In view of this, there had not been any outbreak of water related diseases in the Municipality. In areas where there is absence of either pipe borne or borehole, the residents resort to tanker services. The residents also harvest rainwater during the rainy seasons.

Notwithstanding the above, the Municipality is fast developing with people constructing new houses, hence, the need to extend potable water to newly developing areas. There is also the need to encourage residents to construct boreholes and hand-dug wells in their various homes. The Assembly can seek assistance from the GAMA Project that is ongoing in the Greater Accra Metropolitan Area to help some residents connect water to their homes.

Sanitation

Sanitation is one of the areas the Municipality is critically addressing. The Municipality is very much challenged with sanitation and waste management. Despite the fact that the public dump site is in Kpone, refuse is disposed-off indiscriminately in the Municipality. Notwithstanding that, refuse trucks plying various routes to the dump site are often not properly covered thereby littering the road and its surroundings.

With regards to liquid waste, it is observed that most households do not have access to toilets facilities in their various homes thereby resorting to open defecation. The Municipality currently has 64 commercial toilet facilities in which 51 are privately owned and 13 are built by the Assembly or constructed under the HIPIC project. However, these facilities cannot help solve the problem of open defecation. There is the need to sensitize and promote household ownership of toilets. Proposed building plans without the provision for toilet facilities should be rejected by the Assembly. Building inspectors should also make authorities of the Assembly aware of any development underway without the provision of toilet facilities.