The District Chief Executive for Talensi District, John Milim Nabwomya, has called on residents to adopt proper sanitation practices and take responsibility for keeping their environment clean to protect public health and the environment.
The DCE made the call during the National Sanitation Day exercise held at Datuko, where residents, assembly members, security personnel, and officials of the district assembly joined in a communal clean-up exercise.
Addressing participants after the exercise, Mr. Nabwomya said the initiative was aimed at cleaning the community and educating the public on proper sanitation and waste management practices.
“We embarked on this exercise to clean the entire community and educate the public on proper sanitation. It is proper that on a daily basis, you make sure that you clean your environment, your shops and all your surroundings,” he stated.
He urged residents to properly dispose of sachet water plastics and reduce the use of polythene bags, especially during market activities, noting that indiscriminate disposal of plastic waste was becoming a major environmental challenge.
“When you buy sachet water and after drinking the water, find a waste bin and dispose the sachet. And to the women, when you go to the market, ensure you minimize the number of plastic bags you take back home,” he advised.
The DCE explained that polythene bags negatively affect farming activities and livestock, saying seedlings planted on buried plastics often fail to germinate, while animals such as goats, sheep, and cattle consume the plastics and die as a result.
“Our attitude towards the disposal of polythene bags is the biggest problem we have in Ghana and even Africa as a whole,” he stressed.
Mr. Nabwomya further linked improper waste disposal to environmental pollution and food safety concerns, explaining that plastics washed into water bodies eventually affect aquatic life consumed by humans.
“The fish we buy to eat comes from the sea, and when it rains, the polythene bags are carried into the sea. So let us be responsible in how we manage our waste to save our environment because our environment is us and we are our environment,” he said.
He thanked residents for participating in the exercise and encouraged communities to make sanitation a continuous responsibility rather than a one-day activity.
The Assembly Member for the Datuko Electoral Area, Ayariga Mahamadu, also commended residents for turning out in large numbers for the exercise.
He described sanitation as a shared responsibility and called for regular communal labour to maintain clean surroundings.
“Cleanliness is next to Godliness, but sanitation has become a major problem everywhere. This should not be a one-day exercise. We should make it a routine to clean our homes and environment,” he said.
Mr. Mahamadu noted that plastic waste scattered around communities and farmlands was affecting agricultural productivity and appealed to residents to support efforts aimed at promoting cleanliness and environmental protection in the area.
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