By Mohamed Jaward Nyallay
The Environment Protection Agency (EPA) has expressed concern over the way people dispose of their wastes in the city of Freetown.
The Director of the agency say the rampant practice of burning of waste has a direct effect to the environment and the climate.
Momodu Al-Rashid Bah said this is one of the key problems they are currently looking at tackling.
“We have challenges in handling our waste. People burn waste and when you burn waste, you pollute the air. It is a serious challenge, even in Freetown,” he told Politico.
Mr Bah was speaking in the context of the World Environment (WED), which is commemorated globally to raise awareness about environmental issues.
The theme of this year’s commemoration is ‘Beat Air Pollution.’ In Sierra Leone, EPA said it has localized the theme to reflect the emerging challenges the country faces with regards air quality faces.
“We translated this theme to suit our own comfort. ‘We want clean breeze for welbody en for we environment’,” he said.
“We put it in Krio for people to understand what it means,” he added.
EPA said that as part of its focus on air pollution, it will look at areas like waste management, bush burning, internal pollution and carbon monoxide emission by cars.
Waste management in metropolitan towns across the country have always been a problem. In Freetown, there are two major dumpsites: Kingtom and Kissy. Almost every hour of the day there is a thick cloud of smoke in these dumpsites as a result of burning.
The Freetown City Council (FCC) is responsible to collect and manage waste disposal systems in the capital city. The Environment and Social Officer at FCC, Sulaiman Zainu Parker, told Politico that a lot of these fires are caused by scavengers. But he first explained how the process of air pollution starts during waste management processes.
“Naturally when organic waste is decomposing we have methane that is emitted and methane is one of the greenhouse gases which is also very harmful and it contaminates the air,” he said.
He added: “Because of the volatility of this waste, as a result of activities by scavengers, most times we have fires. As a result of that we have significant emission of carbon dioxide and methane emitting in to the air which most times result into having a very dense atmosphere and also impacts visibility.”
Like many other countries in the world, Sierra Leone has committed itself to the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Two of these goals are related to sustaining the environment and climate change. These are the two issues that are directly affected with the fight against air pollution in the country.
But burning of waste is not just done at large dumpsites like the one in Kissy or the other in Kingtom. It is common practice by residents in the city to burn their waste once it piles up. And for many residents, there is a genuine reason for this. The city has a very poor waste disposal system.
To tackle this issue, the Director of EPA has urged people to recycle and said they are collaborating with relevant authorities to develop laws to support air pollution campaigns.
“They don’t have to burn their waste, they can recycle it. Their actions are really responsible for the degradation of the environment,” he said.
“Definitely we are working together with other institutions like Standards Bureau. We have developed air and water quality standards and sent it to the Office of Chief Justice to look at it,” he added.
There have been calls in the past for FCC to move the major dumpsites away from the city, because of the thick blanket of smoke that envelopes the affected areas. But Parker said they are considering another option.
“What we have done is to work out some kind of arrangement for the transformation of those dumpsites to a sanitary land fill. And equally we are now looking to tackle the activities of scavengers. We are looking at erecting gates and reduce their movement,” the FCC official said.
Parker added that most of this work is also done in collaboration with EPA.
“As you know they are responsible for the environment and they have identified air pollution as a global climate change problem,” he said.
In the coming days, EPA said it will host a panel to discuss issues affecting air quality. These discussions will also involve other stakeholders in other sectors, like the transportation sector, which are seen as major contributors to the carbon foot print.
“We have a panel discussion where we can look at air quality and waste management,” Bah said.
© 2019 Politico Online
