If I were to cleanse Accra of its festering wounds—the mountains of trash clotting its
veins, the toxins seeping into its soul—I would not begin with a shovel.
I would begin with a mirror.
A mirror held up to a city that has learned to look away. To children stepping over
syringes on their walk to school. To traders hawking plantains beside rivers of sludge.
To the grand speeches about “cleanliness” while wetlands smolder with plastic smoke.
These illegal dumps are not accidents. They are monuments to our collective amnesia,
etched in rotting food, melted circuits, and the sour stench of abandonment.
The first thing our city needs is not a broom—it is an honest look at itself. Because
illegal dumps in Accra are not accidental. They are not acts of chance. They are the
physical proof of our neglect, our politics of delay, and our culture of pretending filth is
someone else’s problem. We have normalized the unnatural—children walking past
burning diapers, traders selling oranges beside leaking gutters, and the morning sweep
drowned by evening litter.
The Anatomy of Collapse
The numbers tell a story of systematic failure. Accra generates over 1,000,000 metric tons of
solid waste annually—about 7,000 tonnes every single day—yet more than a quarter of this
waste is never formally collected, instead finding its way into illegal dumps, drains, and the very
streets where children play and traders sell their goods. This is not a “sanitation problem.” This
is a funeral for our conscience.
The composition of our waste reveals the depth of our crisis: 61% organic waste fermenting in
alleys, breeding cholera every 3–5 years—a $100 million ghost haunting our hospitals. Plastics
alone make up 14% of our waste, strangling drains and then erupting into carcinogenic fires that
poison the air our children breathe. About half of households in Accra still rely on illegal or
unauthorized dumping methods, a practice that has helped fuel recurring cholera outbreaks,
costing the city over $100 million annually in health expenses.
Perhaps most damning of all, only 10% of Ghana’s solid waste is recycled. The remaining 90%
is never recycled, only exiled to poison our soil, contaminate our water, and choke our lungs.
Burning waste—a common sight across the city—releases greenhouse gases and toxins.
Further degrading air quality and public health. Every time a truck dumps waste behind a
school, every time a minister speaks of “clean cities” while citizens burn plastic beside wetlands,
every time a street floods because of choked drains, the city dies a little more.
This is not a sanitation problem. It is a crisis of memory, policy, justice, and identity.
The Seven Wounds: A Map of Betrayal
These dumps are not random. They are shaped by economics, silence, and power. They form
an architecture of neglect that spans our city, each site telling its own story of abandonment and
environmental injustice.
Old Fadama (Agbogbloshie): A graveyard of Europe’s electronic waste. Once an international
symbol of e-waste pollution, Old Fadama still carries the legacy of lead, cadmium, and mercury
contamination from years of electronics dismantling. The soil is poisoned, and underground
leachate continues to seep into the Korle Lagoon. Beyond its environmental impact, it stands as
a symbol of global waste injustice , where developed nations export their decay to our doorstep.
Korle Lagoon: What was once sacred has become sacrificial. Once revered in our cultural
memory, Korle Lagoon now receives fecal sludge, biomedical waste, and plastic debris. It emits
methane, chokes drainage, and poses a biohazard to surrounding communities. This is not just
environmental degradation—it is spiritual desecration. The lagoon no longer breathes—it
drowns in our collective neglect.
Mallam Junction: A corridor of chaos engineered by indifference. Mallam Junction sees daily
informal dumping beside one of the city’s busiest traffic arteries. Overflowing refuse here leads
to blocked drains, public health risks, and hazardous driving conditions. It is urban neglect in
plain sight, where trash avalanches onto highways, turning every rainfall into toxic floods.
Achimota Forest Fringes: Where conservation meets contradiction. As Accra’s green lungs
shrink, illegal tipping spreads along the forest’s edges. Once protected by law, parts of the forest
now quietly absorb construction waste and household refuse, creating a silent clash between
conservation and urban creep. Here, chainsaws and dumping trucks conspire to devour what
little “protected” land remains.
Ashaiman Hinterlands: Where urban sprawl meets informal survival. Waste disposal is
improvised in this zone. Plastics, food remains, and construction debris flow unchecked, with
groundwater contamination a looming threat. Informal recycling thrives here, but without
regulation, it remains a double-edged sword—survival at gunpoint, where people burn cables for
copper while poisoning their own water sources.
Glefe & Chemu Lagoon Zones: What was once a functioning lagoon ecosystem is now on life
support. The area receives unregulated biomedical and domestic waste, leading to fish
contamination, recurrent flooding, and the slow death of marine life. Dead fish float belly-up in
water thick with hospital waste. The wetlands here no longer filter—they now suffocate.
Pantang-Ayimensah Road Stretch: The city’s forgotten edge, a peri-urban blind spot that
reflects what happens when city plans end abruptly. Waste dumps multiply in obscurity,
metastasizing in darkness and fed by public apathy. Without oversight, these sites expand
unmonitored, feeding both health risks and our collective amnesia.
The Prescription: Science Woven with Soul
Cleaning Accra demands more than trucks and good intentions—it requires biological alchemy
and cultural resurrection. The process of bioremediation must be understood as both a strategic
and spiritual journey, one that honors both scientific rigor and the sacred relationship between
people and land.
Phase 1: Truth-Telling Through Diagnosis
This phase begins with rigorous soil and water testing to detect heavy metals, microbial loads,
pH levels, and leachates. Drones map toxicity zones with satellite precision. Soil tests reveal the
hidden violence of heavy metals. But real diagnosis goes deeper than laboratory results—it
requires listening. Hearing the woman who bathes her child in lead-laced water. Understanding
the trader who sells vegetables grown in contaminated soil. Paired with community
consultations, we uncover not just the geography ocontamination , but the social story of each
dump.
Phase 2: Rituals Before Shovels
Bioremediation is as cultural as it is chemical. Every intervention begins with the custodians of
the land. Chiefs are consulted, rites performed, and communal memory respected. This stage
reestablishes spiritual trust, which science alone cannot restore. Libations pour. Traditional
authorities bless the earth. This is not a mere ceremony—it is the foundation upon which all
healing must rest.
Phase 3: Nature’s Surgeons at Work
Each site is matched with biological remedies, deploying nature’s capacity for healing:
Fungal Bioremediation (Mycoremediation): Species like Pleurotus ostreatus are deployed at
hydrocarbon-heavy zones like Agbogbloshie. These fungi devour oil sludge, breaking down
complex pollutants into harmless compounds. They are silent warriors working beneath the
surface, transforming poison into soil.
Phytoremediation: Vetiver grass and Indian mustard are planted to draw out lead, arsenic, and
other metals from contaminated soil. These plants act as living vacuum cleaners, concentrating
heavy metals in their tissues where they can be safely harvested and disposed of. Along Korle’s
banks, vetiver grass pulls arsenic from the earth while stabilizing eroding shorelines.
Microbial Inoculation: Anaerobic bacteria strains are introduced to reduce sludge toxicity in
stagnant zones like Korle Lagoon. These microscopic allies feast on fecal waste and organic
pollutants, breaking them down into less harmful compounds. This stage is carefully monitored,
with lab support and on-site tracking to ensure optimal conditions for microbial activity.
Phase 4: Human Cathedrals
This is where public ownership begins, where communities become active participants in their
healing:
Youth “Waste Scouts”: Young people are trained to conduct daily monitoring, soil sampling,
and safety checks. They become the eyes and ears of the remediation process, building both
technical skills and environmental stewardship. These scouts patrol sites, document progress,
and serve as bridges between scientific teams and local communities.
Compost Labs: Low-income zones are equipped with community composting facilities that
become innovation hubs. Residents learn to transform organic waste into valuable soil
amendments, creating both environmental benefits and economic opportunities. These labs
become temples of transformation, where waste becomes wealth.
Mobile Infrastructure: Biotoilets and mobile waste digesters are deployed in underserved
areas, replacing open defecation and pit dumping with sanitary, sustainable alternatives. These
mobile units can be relocated as needs change, providing flexible solutions for dynamic urban
environments.
Phase 5: Resurrection and Reintegration
Remediated lands are not left empty—they are reborn with purpose and meaning. Some
become productive community gardens where families grow food in soil that was once
poisoned. Others host memory parks where youth learn environmental ethics through
interactive installations. Public art projects commemorate the transformation, ensuring the city
never forgets what stood there before.
These spaces become living testimonies to the possibility of healing, proof that even the most
damaged places can be restored to life and productivity. Community farms burst with cassava
and vegetables. Memory parks feature sculptures forged from reclaimed plastic, turning waste
into art and education into inspiration.
The Justice Manifesto: Policy Levers for Remediation
True transformation requires more than technical solutions—it demands systemic change that
addresses the root causes of our waste crisis. The following policy interventions are not
suggestions; they are necessities for a city that refuses to die in its filth.
Prosecute Neglect, Not Poverty: Grant metropolitan assemblies the power to prosecute
systemic neglect—not just individual littering—and enforce timelines for dump closures. We
must jail systemic dumpers while supporting street hawkers and informal workers who are often
criminalized for survival strategies. Legal reform must distinguish between corporate
environmental crimes and individual acts of desperation.
Land Clarity as Foundation: Sanitize grey zones of ownership that stall cleanup efforts.
Collaborate with traditional authorities to document and recognize custodial claims. The
paralysis of unclear land ownership has allowed dumps to fester in legal limbo. Traditional
custodians and city planners must work together to create documented ownership frameworks
that enable swift action.
Fund the Future, Not Empty Slogans: Redirect sanitation budgets toward long-term
ecosystem health: fungi farms, mycology labs, and permaculture training. Stop funding photo
opportunities and start investing in mycology labs and permaculture schools. The money
exists—it is simply misdirected toward short-term political gains rather than long-term
environmental health.
Corporate Accountability with Teeth: Sanitation companies must adopt transparency
benchmarks, with community scorecards influencing contract renewal. Companies that fail
community assessments should have their contracts revoked. Public-private partnerships must
serve the public first, with clear performance metrics tied to community health outcomes rather
than political connections.
Community Ownership of Solutions: Establish waste management cooperatives that give
communities direct control over their sanitation systems. These cooperatives can contract with
the city while maintaining local accountability and creating sustainable employment for
residents.
The Mirror’s Revelation: Cleaning as Collective Confession
We have mistaken cleaning for covering up. We have confused sanitation with silence. But to
clean a city like Accra is to stand before its wounds and say, We see you. We caused this. We
will not walk past again.
We thought cleaning meant hiding stains. True cleansing? Standing before our wounds and
whispering, “We did this.” Every dump must be treated not as a place of shame but as an
archive. A place to learn how cities forget people—and how they might begin to remember.
These dumps are not shameful secrets—they are living archives. Archives of how cities
abandon their people. How policy becomes poison. How silence is complicity.
The philosophy of true urban healing recognizes that environmental restoration and social
justice are inseparable. We cannot clean our land while leaving our people dirty. We cannot
purify our water while poisoning our politics. We cannot heal our soil while maintaining systems
that treat human beings as disposable.
Yes, we need science. But first, we need sorrow. We need the humility to acknowledge that our
waste crisis is a moral crisis, that our environmental degradation reflects our social degradation.
We need compost, yes. But deeper, we need ceremony. We need rituals of acknowledgment,
processes of truth-telling, and practices of collective accountability.
The mirror I speak of is not just metaphorical. It is the reflection we see in the eyes of children
who play beside toxic dumps. It is the image that stares back at us from the polluted waters of
Korle Lagoon. It is the face of a city that has forgotten how to care for itself and its most
vulnerable residents.
If I were to clean Accra, I would begin with that mirror. I would hold it up to every policymaker,
every business owner, and every citizen who has learned to look away. I would ask them to see
not just the waste, but the waste of human potential. Not just the pollution, but the pollution of
our collective conscience.
And then, having looked honestly at what we have done, I would bend down, touch the dirt, and
begin to listen. Listen to the land that has absorbed our neglect. Listen to the communities that
have borne the burden of our indifference. Listen to the possibility of healing that exists even in
the most damaged places.
The work of cleaning Accra is the work of remembering who we are and who we can become. It
is the work of transforming not just our waste, but our relationship to waste. Not just our dumps,
but our tendency to dump responsibility on others. Not just our environment, but our
understanding of what it means to be environmental stewards in an urban age.
So I raise the mirror. I bend into the dirt. And for the first time, I listen to the land weep, and I
hear in that weeping the possibility of song.
By Richard Dablah Email: richard.dablah@gmail.com
