Clean Ghana Campaign: Accra Struggling To Cope With Wastes in Agbogbloshie Market

The Accra Metropolitan Assembly (AMA) states that it is struggling to collect and dispose waste generated at the Agbogbloshie market.

The difficulty, the assembly has explained, is due to the fact that it is only able to collect 40% of the waste generated by the hundreds of vendors and customers each day.

A representative of AMA Gordon Akorea said “the market generates 24 tons of waste and each compactor truck carries 12 tons of waste but the AMA is only able to collect 10 tons of waste from the market daily”.

Although the assembly is doing everything in its power to ensure the market is clean and safe, the vendors also express concern about the difficulty in properly disposing the waste.

A trader, at the heart of the market square, disclosed that they clean the market as often as they can but the issue is where to dump the refuse.

Others say the waste bin provided by the assembly is nothing to write home about — small containers that can barely hold the waste generated.

Another trader blamed some vendors who choose to dump their waste in the gutters at night.

The traders are, therefore, appealing to the government and the AMA to provide bigger bins to enable them to keep the environment clean.

Meanwhile, the assembly has warned that traders who are found dumping their refuse in gutters and unauthorized places will be made to face the law.

Agbogbloshie market is undoubtedly one of the biggest and patronized markets in Ghana, located in the country’s capital, Accra.

A characteristic of most market centres in Accra is the large volumes of waste they generate which overwhelm the sanitation management system.

But the AMA said that its target this month is to make the Agbogbloshie market one of the cleanest in the city.

The exercise forms part of the Clean Ghana Campaign project