Ghana, a middle income country, is still in the phase of understanding and appreciating the need for environmental quality. Most Ghanaians are still engaged in littering, inappropriate and indiscriminate disposal of waste, open incineration, and unregulated release of wood dust and smoke. These practices are the commonest in rural areas and frequent in urban centres.

On several circumstances during my environmental education programs, people are used to arguing that it is not their responsibility to clean up their environment. They expect the government to do so because they have the right to a clean environment. Despite this argument, these same people are the very ones who are highly engaged in unfriendly environmental practices such as littering and living under insanitary conditions which pose a threat to their health.

In 2012, WHO reported that 6,500 Ghanaians die annually due to exposure to air pollution. Later in 2014, WHO report indicated that over 13,000 Ghanaians - including 3,000 children, die annually due to air pollution exposure. The increase in death indicates an increase in pollution. Initially, air pollution was attributed to the use of wood fuel across the country. About 84 percent of Ghana's population rely on solid fuels such as wood and charcoal for cooking. This situation has been curbed by the Ministry of Energy and Petroleum, the Energy Commission, Ghana Alliance for Clean-Cook Stoves and other stakeholders through the introduction of several programmes and initiatives aimed at transiting Ghana from a solid fuel using country to cleaner fuel using country.

In 2014, the government of Ghana introduced the Rural Liquefied Petroleum Gas Promotion Programme aimed at enabling rural dwellers to have access to LPG at an affordable price and to improve their quality of life by reducing labour and time wasted in fetching wood fuel.

Now, it has come to the point that Air Quality in Ghana is highly undermined and caused by a lot of factors.  People do not think twice about the health effects associated with air pollution before engaging in practices that pollutes the air we breathe.

Last week, I put on my Tunza Eco-generation shirt, picked my business card and went to a lumber mill to spend some time with them and more importantly, observe the status of their environment.

Prior to entering the facility, I stopped by some surrounding communities and households closer to the mill and asked them some few questions.

I asked three basic questions:

Do you feel environmentally insecure living closer to a lumber mill?

Common Answer: Yes.

How does the presence of a lumber mill in your community affects you?

Common Answer: The atmosphere is heavily polluted with wood dust in the morning - usually from 7 am to 9 am when we are preparing for work so it doesn?t affect us much. But sometimes, it does occur in the evening too and it prevents us from spending much time outside because we fear inhaling it might cause health hazards.

Is there anything you wish the management of the mill could do to make your stay better?

 Yes. They should develop a technology to prevent the wood dust from flying through the air. And also, during the raining season, the wood produces unpleasant odour which must stop.

Afterwards, I visited the lumber mill and introduced myself to some staff and workers there as a Tunza Eco-generation ambassador. I told them the purpose of my visit and before I completed my sentences, the workers were all gone. The remaining staff were not very open to me, due to their knowledge of their unlawful environmental practices. They wouldn?t give me any explanation to the questions I asked them, neither were they willing to take any photograph with me. They feared I might report them to responsible agencies.

After several attritions, the management answered some few questions. In brief, they agreed that their operation causes pollution to the environment but also serves some benefit to the community folks such as buying logs at a very cheaper price. So to them, it?s a fair exchange. Secondly, they are working on improving their operations by buying a dust control equipment.

I was angry by their idea of ?fair exchange?. Environmental quality and good health cannot be traded for anything. I advised them to plant bamboo around their site to serve as a filter – to trap wood dust from entering the inhabited communities. Also, they should try and cover up the entire site to prevent woods and wood dust from getting wet – which produces unpleasant odour. 

 Through partnership and collaboration, I hope to engage responsible agencies to enforce an effective control measure to prevent dust pollution in the near future. 

I have also informed the local government representatives to support the lumber mill in purchasing necessary environmental management equipment.