AMA calls for concerted effort to keep beaches clean

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) has called for a joint effort by the public and waste management companies to ensure cleanliness along the beaches in the metropolis at all times.

The AMA Drains and Maintenance Unit Director, Mr Graham Sarbah, said the current state of the beaches was nothing to write home about as they had gradually been turned into dumping grounds for waste, especially plastic materials.

He said aside from the plastic materials, residents who lived close to the beaches, had also turned them into places of convenience, thereby making them unattractive to tourists.

Mr Sarbah made the call during a clean-up exercise in Accra to mark the monthly National Sanitation Day (NSD) exercise in the region.

This month’s exercise focused on the beaches.

About 8a.m., some sanitation workers of the AMA in collaboration with Zoomlion Ghana Limited and a handful of fishmongers along the Jamestown Beach were seen clearing and collecting plastic bottles that had been washed ashore.

 While some gathered the bottles as they tidied up portions of the beach, others collected them into baskets and put them in waste trucks provided by Zoomlion.

Clean environment

Mr Sarbah said to ensure that the beaches were maintained and cleaned at all times, the assembly would employ 20 sanitary workers to monitor activities along the beaches in Accra.

Additionally, he said the assembly would continue to distribute waste bins in the metropolis so that residents and other members of the public would be able to dispose of their waste properly.

Meanwhile, Mr Sarbah has advised the public to properly manage their waste to prevent them from ending up at the beaches.

Apathy

Though the NSD was launched in November last year with a call on the general public to participate in the exercise in order to keep their environments clean, some members of the public had been adamant to the national call.

For instance at Maamobi, a community in the Ayawaso East Constituency, residents looked on as the Assemblyman for the area, Mr Derrick Asagbo, and the unit committee members desilted choked drains in the area.

At Accra New Town, a group of women known as “Mahama Ladies” were seen sweeping and clearing drains along the road while traders and residents looked on unconcerned.

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The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) is calling on the public and waste management companies, to play their respective roles towards keeping beaches in the metropolis clean.

1.Some traders helping to collect the plastic bottles into the waste truck

2. Sanitation workers of Zoomlion Ghana Limited and the AMA, clearing the plastic bottles along the Jamestown Beach in Accra.