Looking for God in filth

It was a cloudy and cool Sunday morning and I found myself at the car park of the new halls of residence of the University of Ghana.

I was sitting in a lot of rubbish generated from a celebration the previous night.

It must have been a Hall Week, and the remnants of disposable cups, polythene bags, plastic bottles and lots of other rubbish were scattered all over.

Some food vendors were now packing away their cheffing utensils and others had covered theirs with sheets of polythene bags to pack them off later. The flags of sponsors still flew and some canopies were still in place. A tilapia vendor’s banners were waiting to be removed. The whole place was a mess.

The dirt, though striking, did not surprise me as much as the number of young men and women who were very well dressed obviously heading to church. Some held their Bibles.

They carefully stepped away from the rubbish, avoiding it as they gaited away.

At the background, I heard others praying and speaking in tongues; obviously filled with the Holy Spirit and seeking God’s presence.

Self-esteem

The Bible, in Deuteronomy and many more verses, speaks about uncleanliness and how the presence of God is incongruent with filth.

Deuteronomy 23:12-14 states: “ Designate a place outside the camp, where you can go to relieve yourself. As part of your equipment have something to dig with, and when you relieve yourself, dig a hole and cover up your excrement. For the LORD your God moves about in your camp to protect you and to deliver your enemies to you. Your camp must be holy, so that he will not see among you anything indecent and turn away from you.”

God directed the Israelites to make sure that their settlements were clean in order that His presence would be assured among them and to protect them from their enemies.

Simple enemies such as poor health and self-esteem must encourage the people of this country to keep our environment clean.

Waste disposal

The problem with waste disposal is assuming dangerous and uncontrollable dimensions and we need to fight it from every angle possible, especially from our educational institutions to faith-based organisations.

The President’s agenda of making Accra the cleanest city in Africa and all other slogans mean nothing unless policy and habits are specially targeted. There is so much that can simply be localised from other people’s examples and it is simply strange why we continue to struggle to keep our cities and environment clean.

Start

Can we start with the simple separation of waste? It is still surprising that Ghana has taken forever to start implementing waste separation at all levels.

Many countries have been doing this for more than 10 years.

In some countries, waste is separated into as many as five different bins. We can start with just two or three separate bins; organic waste such as food, plastic waste and others.

Organic waste can easily be turned into compost and plastic waste recycled.

This will drastically reduce the pressure on our landfill sites.

Does Ghana have one simple position or policy on plastics and its disposal? The menace of plastics and poor disposal is killing our environment. Somehow, we have refused to act.

Many countries keep passing laws on plastics to make its management better. Kenya and Rwanda are leading the way.

It is becoming almost embarrassing. Can we simply have a responsibility law, so that all those who generate the contents of our waste are made to be responsible for it somehow?

Let us stop looking for God in filth and make our environment clean and God will be with us. God will not bless our homeland Ghana in filth.

The writer is an architect
Writer’s E-mail: tony.asare@tektonconsult.com