By Laudia Sawer
Tema, July 17, GNA – Mr. Richster Nii Amarh Amarfio, the Secretary of the National Fisheries Association of Ghana (NAFAG), has described as worrying the level of plastic pollution in the country’s marine space.
The Ghana News Agency Tema Regional Team tour of some beaches at Kpone, Ada, Tema and Sakumono revealed that plastic waste, especially black polythene bags and other household waste, in the sea was alarming.
Mr. Amarfio, was reacting to the plastic pollution situation as part of the media platform known as “Blue Gold: Ghana’s Economic Transformer.
The platform, initiated by the Ghana News Agency, Tema Regional Office, is
intended to serve as a comprehensive journalistic interaction with participants and other stakeholders in the blue economy arena,
The GNA-Tema developed the platform “Blue Gold: Ghana’s Economic Transformer” to advance the conversation on the blue economy and provide a venue for those involved in the sector to work with the media to project events that take place in the industry.
Mr Amarfio who is also the former Secretary of the Ghana Tuna Association, said the number of plastics scattered into the sea was questionable, stating that “when you walk along our beaches, it’s a terrible site of waste, especially plastics.”
He said he found it difficult to comprehend the rationale behind channelling all waste from government projects and households into water bodies, explaining that such waste, including plastics on the roadsides, all ended up in the waterbodies, through to the estuaries.
He called for a police force to reverse such trends due to their devastating effect on the ocean and marine life.
He said until recently, fishermen were sending water to sea in gallons. When I was young and we were fishing, we had the calabash we were all fetching water from, so we didn’t have any challenge disposing of the plastic.”
Mr. Amarfio, who is also the Director of Operations at Laif Fisheries Company Limited, said currently, because the fisher folks were not too sure of the quality of water coming through their taps, they carried bags of sachet water to sea, and no one could tell the number of empty sachet rubbers they brought back ashore.
He said there was a need to put an incentive and containers in their canoes to drop their plastic waste in them for disposal on return.
He also called for the banning of the use of single-use plastics to ensure that they do not end up in the sea, stressing that “if you can’t manage it, don’t allow it into the system.”
Ms. Abena Serwaa Opoku Fosu, the Marketing and Public Affairs Manager at the Tema Port, told the GNA in Tema that most of the plastics seen in the sea around the breakwater and the canoe basin was from the settlements around the port.
She said although every quarter they desilted activities at the fishing harbour, they still had more in the sea.
She said to curtail and control, they continued to educate the public about their waste disposal and its implication on marine life, adding that they had gone further to put recycling bins in the communities even as they intensified the education.
She stated that apart from endangering marine activities, plastic waste pollution was also not good for the port environment as it did not tell a good story about the facility.
She said the GPHA took the protection and sustainability of the environment seriously and put in place measures such as turtle protection and the ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) certification in the environmental field.
GNA