Clear Waters Project
Cleaning, Restoring and Reconditioning Water Bodies
Pollution in our waterways is not only dangerous and unsanitary for humans, but it also affects wildlife.
This project is designed to prevent waste generated from human activity from ending up in our waterways, storm drains and gutters. It is a key aim to implement innovative solutions to both prevent waste and silt from accumulating in our drains and to remove existing waste to ensure that all waterways and storm drains are clean.
In Ghana, a significant amount of waste ends up in drains, streams, and open spaces. This is because in many areas, especially in rural and low-income communities, lack proper waste collection services and disposal facilities to urge the community to dispose off their waste in creative ways. This leads to people resorting to easier, but environmentally harmful, methods of waste disposal. Ghana faces challenges with its waste management infrastructure. This includes limited access to proper sanitation facilities like sewers and septic tanks, especially in rural areas and low-income communities.
Improper waste disposal poses significant environmental and public health challenges in Ghana. This proposal outlines a multipronged approach to address this issue through improved waste collection, public awareness, and community engagement.
In Ghana, about 12,710 tonnes of solid waste is generated every day, with only 10 percent collected and disposed of properly. Plastic waste constitutes a large proportion of urban waste. The uncollected solid and liquid waste are disposed of in inappropriate ways with most of it ending up in the drains, waterways and gutters as shown in the chart below.
Ghana has a problem with solid waste in drains, and this causes perineal floods in cities across the country. Accra, the capital is not exempt. There are many companies that are tasked to collect the solid waste from the drains, waterways and gutters but none employ your innovative solutions thus making the collection process inefficient. A strategic partnership presents a unique opportunity for both the Chamber of Entrepreneurship and Innovation and a partner to use Innovative technologies to address this issue.
Traditional waste collection and management in Ghana is centered around waste collected from homes. Although this is effective and required, the waste they end up in drains and water bodies are largely neglected and as such end up in rivers and finally the sea. This project intends to implement innovative technologies to remove waste from the drains and water bodies as well as the storm drain systems
The 2023 Accra floods resulted from heavy continuous rainfall in Accra, the largest city in Ghana. The main cause of this flood is as a result of the improper planning of settlement in Accra, choked gutters which block the drainage system and a few other human factors. The floods have resulted in heavy traffic on the roads in the city and also a halt in commercial activities as markets were flooded and workers trapped. This is a common occurrence and has happened frequently in previous years. This project seeks to address this issue. The current approach is to desilt gutters and drains, hoping to keep them clear until the rains come. This approach is flawed as waste that end up in the drains and gutters are not collected effectively, resulting in the re-clogging of the drains
We subscribe to the ideology that there is value in garbage. Some of the materials to be collected from the drains can be recycled. The waste collected will be sorted, with the individual components recycled where they can be to be reused.
There has been a recent global fight against plastics in our water bodies worldwide. Ghana has and is contributing to this as most of the plastics that end up on our drains, water bodies and storm drain systems are washed into rivers and eventually into the sea. This project as designed will address this issue by removing plastics for the drains and water bodies, thereby curbing the dumping of plastics into rivers and the sea through the drainage system.
When many of us were younger, we used to be able to fish in our urban water bodies. There was a variety of fauna that inhabited our urban water bodies. Due to pollution, this is no longer the case. This project intends to clean up the urban water bodies and provide an environment that will encourage the return of fauna.
As we have indicated, We believe there is value in Garbage. For all the objectives stipulated above to be achieved, there must be a well-trained, well motivated and effective workforce to do all the work. Implementing this project will provide jobs for the youth of this country. This will provide many jobs in the following sectors
To get this project off the ground, We seek to partner with organizations to provide Expertise, Funding, Logistics and Training to ensure that this laudable initiative is launched to provide the desired impact. Although this is focused on Ghana for now, the scalability of the idea provides room to expend and innovate to clear all water bodies one drain at a time to reclaim restore and recondition water bodies in Ghana, Africa and beyond.