WAILING GUTTER

On September 12, 2017, returning from the National Health Insurance Service (NHIS) office, La- La Dadekotopong, something caught my attention. What caught my attention was a gutter filled with plastic waste. I went to the National Health Insurance office to renew my NHIS card which was to expire the next day.

On reaching the gutter, an open gutter, I stopped and took a picture of the gutter filled with plastic waste. I photoshopped the picture I took a bit. I created a face out of the wall of the gutter so that the wall was seen as swallowing up the plastic waste. The face I put on the wall was wailing, making it a wailing gutter. It reminds me of the Wailing Wall. Why was the gutter wailing? The gutter was wailing, per how I imagined it, because it was tired of swallowing solid plastic waste. The gutter was meant to drain liquid waste, not solid waste. Who will put in a word for the miserable gutter? When will the abuse stop?

The gutter is located at T-Junction- La, directly opposite La Palm Royal Beach Hotel across the dual carriage.   There are many such instances around. The Odawnaa (Circle) gutter is an example. The gutter at the back of Paloma is yet another example. These are a few examples of gutters into which solid waste is dumped. These examples I have cited are all in Ghana, West Africa. The indiscriminate deposition of plastic waste, apparently an urban culture, is happening in the rest of the world as well- Asia, Europe, Americas etc.

The gutter at the T-Junction was relatively big. Those at Odawnaa and Paloma are bigger. The point in the gutter where I took the picture may be 200 meters from the Kpeshie. Kpeshie is a lagoon in La- La Dadekotopong. La Dadekotopong is a municipality which shares its western border with Accra Metropolis. La is its capital. The pile of plastic in the gutter stretched for about 10 yards. One way or the other the gutter has to drain itself of the plastic waste. More often than not the gutter gets help from rain. When it rains the plastic in the gutter may find its way into the Kpeshie, which was once very fertile with acqautic life. The Kpeshie empties its content into the Atlantic Ocean. In empting its contents into the Atlantic Ocean the plastic in the gutter ends up in the ocean. The oceans, the biggest of “gutters”, then become the last stop for the conveyance and deposition of plastic waste, among others.

Plastic not only destroy aquatic life in the lagoon it compromises balance in the oceans into which it is released. Plastic upsets and destroys habitats of organisms in the oceans. Plastics are composed of chemicals, and chemistry is not static, elements are reacting with elements to form compounds and compounds are splitting up to form elements. It is a question of balance in man-made chemistry and natural chemistry!

Plastics upset and destroy habitats in the oceans leading to loss of species. Coral reefs are being lost. You go Teshie, a coastal town in Ghana, and ask a fisherman how fishing expeditions are these days. They should tell you that when they go fishing all they catch is plastic, many a time. Aquatic life forms are swallowing plastic which causes dysfunctions in metabolism, leading to death in some cases.  Add this to global warming, compounding a complication!

So how is plastic managed to conduce into a balanced natural environment?

The heart of the solution is how consumers dispose of plastic, and strategic and tactical replacement of plastic with environmentally, chemically conducive materials.

These concerns, of necessity, pushes mankind to the verge of a green revolution. Green revolution is the application of environmentally friendly ideas and technology. How far is man gone in this direction?

The success of the green revolution, depends on a simple yet profound logic. If the rate at which mankind adopts and applies green ideas and ways outpaces, subdues and eliminates environmentally harmful ideology and applications, mankind should triumph.