On June 3rd, 2015, Ghana recorded one of its darkest tragedies since the turn of the century. The rains angrily evolved into a devastating flood that carried fire across streets in Accra’s business district claiming over 200 lives in its path. Although I was not harmed, my heart was scarred and my life was changed.
The rains started gently on a cool night, showing off their white incisors with great promise to nourish crops and refill reservoirs. Little did we know that the June 3rd rains had canines buried deep down in their teeth. The rains became violent, endearing fear as they poured loudly. They signaled extreme danger, long sad nights of pain, and anguish, making the traditional councils believe the gods are angry once more. I feared for my own lettuce and cassava plants. Seeing the sharp winds
lift-off roofing sheets and displace houses like grains of corn, shallowing above the surface of the great seas. That night, I dashed out to bring my sister home; everyone in my family did.
According to the news, the fires occurred due to a fuel leakage from the underground tanks of a nearby petrol filling station seeped atop the rushing waters. A spark instigated the fires that claimed both lives and property. Months after the horrendous event, reports from investigators revealed that the fires and the floods were caused by the poor drainage system in Accra choked with plastic waste. I was gruesomely pickled, inspired, but more so, filled with a rage to combat the
tides with my bare hands. I learned to make intentional decisions and actions in measures to prevent such a fiasco from happening again. It was easy to feel helpless against the forces of nature. But this tragedy was anything but natural and something could be done about it.
I began my quest by asking questions about what we could do about the plastic waste menace. I made an important observation during the interview: most of my interviewees had little or no idea of the effects of plastic pollution, some talked about having no alternatives and how cheap plastics are making them a good-enough option.
After gathering enough Intel from my interviewees and speaking with my mentor, I resolved to start an awareness campaign about plastic waste management, using the June 3rd incident as a critical example to demonstrate what happens otherwise. We embarked on sanitization campaigns through social media, public gatherings and we visited a couple of schools. The social media campaign especially garnered interest and attention from young people in other countries who are passionate
about conservation projects; the impact of our collective efforts has been great. We were able to reach and inspire approximately 180+ people via social media, 6 in communities around us and about 200 students, and orchestrated 6 clean-up exercises in my community.
Encouraged by our successes, I started thinking about alternatives to gradually fade out plastics. I was selected for the Innovate Ghana Design Challenge run by mentors from Stanford, Columbia, and Cornell Universities where I got design CocoPots, a biodegradable planting pot made from cocoa pods, sawdust, and starch to replace the use of plastic bags during seedling transplanting. I won third place with my invention and seed funding to start producing the pots.
My interventions were borne out of a tragic event but my resolve is to fight out the epidemic one plastic waste at a time. I realize that this is possible only with a collective effort and sometimes the immensity of the undertaking is discouraging. But I stay motivated by the market woman who has now made it a point to recycle, the farmer who chooses our pots over the plastic bag and my peers who volunteered on our sensitization treks. I have that community and that is more than enough.