By Elizabeth Larkwor Baah
Tema, June 9, GNA – Ms Irene Opoku, Acting Director, Accra East Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), says targeting the youth to champion waste management activities is one sure way of protecting biodiversity.
She said the youth have the ability to influence behavioural change towards some of the environmental challenges.
She said in particular, children better understand the proper way of handling and disposing solid waste.
Ms Opoku made this known in an in an interview with the Ghana News Agency in Tema during a tour of some schools in the Tema Region organized by EPA to mark the 2023 World Environment Day.
She donated three waste bins each to the schools she visited.
She noted that it was key to engage the younger generation on the proper way to manage waste to reduce the growing environmental threats in the country and in the world.
She explained that the youth serve as a great conduit for transferring information to several actors within their communities, so by educating them with the necessary information, they would be able to disseminate information on the consequences of waste pollution and the need to address it among their peer.
She mentioned indiscriminate disposal plastics not only littered the environment, but had a long-term impact of moving into water bodies and then into the oceans, adding that it also affected livelihood, occupation, transportation, tourism, and the ecosystem as a whole.
She suggested that one of the means of reducing the presence of plastic in the environment was going back to reusable bags for marketing and other activities.
She expressed worry that the lack of a proper waste management system was a contributing factor to those huge garbage dumps in the various communities, stressing that there was a need to start basic waste segregation by putting up three garbage bins in the homes and offices.
GNA