With the fair knowledge of science I have, it is very worth to say that plastic items of any kind can take at least ten years to decompose and up to a thousand years to decompose. Filth in some communities in Ghana is composed of 99% of plastics. The situation is very worrying because it makes the environment unclean and again this plastics serve as habitats and breeding grounds for some pests and parasites such as flies, mosquitoes, rodents, silver fish, cockroach and termite, just to mention a few. The resurgence of plastic filth in some communities in the country as a whole can be attributed to many factors which I would cover a few. It is first of all, I will attribute the first factor to the increase in birth rate. This sudden increase has brought pressure on the few consumables available. Ghana is a developing country therefore getting finished goods or consumables is very difficult. This has led to a further increase in the rate of import. It is not bad to import because it serves as income for countries which this imports are made from but the question could be; how has this affected or contributed to the increase of filth in some communities in the country? The next paragraph answers this query in detail.

As Ghanaians, we believe in our culture and heritage hence, it is a sign of respect to put a consumable or an item purchased in a plastic rubber to a customer. What this means is that, if I purchase five bottles of distilled water at different times in the day, I would be given five plastic rubbers. Our human resources have not been well tapped so if the customer is not an environmental conscious person like myself, he or she may be forced to drop this five plastics anywhere they find. Another question that could probably pop up here is; are bins not around for this plastics to be placed in after usage? The distribution of bins are done by private companies and anything that has to do with the private sector, comes with the ultimate goal of making profits. The cost for the buying of this bins and the cost for conveying this bins to a landfill when they are full, have made people more reluctant to get the bins. Some people also complain of the fact that the bins are not emptied frequently and hence they are sometimes pressured to find alternate ways of getting rid of their trash. Some bury them where as some burn them. Either of this alternate ways, causes pollution to the environment. My problem here is with the plastics, since it takes many years for them to decompose I want to raise awareness of its threats to the environment and find better ways to get an alternate way to wrap items to customers. It first has to start with the individuals. They have to know the effects of dumping refuse or trash anyhow and at any place. It would again have to do with the government being brave enough to ban some plastic items which compose of almost 99% of the filth in our societies and to encourage plastic bag producing companies to venture into paper bag production. Paper because they can easily decompose and again paper is food for some organisms such as roaches, silverfish and many types of beetles. This is not to say that the environment should be polluted with these papers but that notwithstanding, should it be so at least we are sure that in a maximum of sixty days the papers would be gone through decomposition.

Some years past and just last year 2018, the government made an effort to ban some plastic items but concerns and external pressure from companies involved in this business made it impossible or better to say, compromised the government to overturn its initial decision to ban some of this plastic items. Some of the concerns raised included the fact that there is no policy to rely on to ban this plastic items. Another fact being it that it could lead to an increase in unemployment rate because the various companies involved in this business, would lay off its workers should the ban be enforced. This issues coupled with other factors has made the government very reluctant to place a ban on this plastic items. The minister in charge of sanitation made it known on 11^th April 2018 that a National Plastic Waste Management Policy is underway and that in no time, a policy would be put forward to ban some plastic items. Meanwhile, as we wait for the policy, awareness should be raised and that is what I seek to do with my tenure as an ambassador for Eco Generation.

Thank you.