By Admin | 811 words | Reading time: 3 min
Local livelihood strategies and poor awareness of air pollution and its adverse health effects in Accra, Ghana, could be contributing to the increasing rate of premature deaths attributable to poor air quality in the capital city.
Accra Royal Junior High School, Jamestown, Accra, Ghana/ 13 November 2018
Air Pollution Awareness Campaign in Ghana
The AirMask & Textiles Company, on 13 November 2018, donated1 anti-pollution face masks to students of Accra Royal Junior High School and members of the Jamestown slaughterhouse, both in Jamestown, a district near the center of Accra, Ghana's capital city.
The donation was part of an awareness campaign by the company to increase local knowledge of air pollution and its adverse health effects in the Greater Accra Region.
Accra Royal Junior High School, Jamestown, Accra/ 13 November 2018
Accra Royal Junior High School is close to several sources of hazardous air pollutants, including smoke from a waste-dumping site near Korle Bu mortuary, inside the premises of Korle Bu Teaching Hospital, Ghana’s premier healthcare facility.
Other sources include toxic smoke from the burning of insulated copper wires for copper recovery at Agbogbloshie and the surrounding areas.
Accra Royal SHS Students Ask Questions
In charging the students to become active participants in the company’s awareness campaign to improve air quality in Accra, the form 1, 2 & 3 students who live in the surrounding areas posed series of questions to Ghana News Agency (GNA)'s journalists who were there to cover the event.
“If the government is aware of the air pollution situation around Jamestown and Old Fadama, why haven’t they done anything about it?” asked Ezekiel Seidu, a form 2 student and a resident of Old Fadama, a community near the notorious Agbogbloshie e-waste dump.
The journalists obviously could not answer this one.
A form 1 student, Emmalina Yartey, who resides in Jamestown, wondered, “Say I see someone openly burning rubbish, and I tell this person to stop because their action is a health hazard, and this person abuse me, could I report this to the police?”
We all agreed that yes, this could be a case for the police to intervene, as she may be merely demanding this person to stop violating Ghana’s environmental laws.
Jamestown Slaughterhouse
We visited Jamestown slaughterhouse, where they use scrap tires to singe livestock, after our engagement with students from Accra Royal Junior High School.
Photo Credit: Muntaka Chasant/atcmask.com/3 October 2018
Some members of this slaughterhouse felt our campaign was a threat to their livelihood, and actually attempted to assault us.
We still engaged some of the members regardless, and donated particulate respirators to a section of the members.
Our Temtop handheld air quality monitor consistently measured 999.9 micrograms per cubic meter (μg/m3) of PM2.5 in this area. Obviously above what this device could measure.
The 999.9μg/m3 of PM2.5 we consistently registered in this area was far above the Air Quality Index (AQI) maximum value of 500.
AQI values between 301 - 500 are considered hazardous by the US EPA.
See also: Particulate Matter (PM2.5 and PM10) Basics
Air Quality near Jamestown Lighthouse, Accra, Ghana/ 13 November 2018
Scrap tires are much cheaper compared to other sources of fuel, says members of this Jamestown slaughterhouse.
A member who regularly uses scrap tires to singe goats and sheep argued that, their ancestors all the way back to the time of Mansa Musa (referring to the 14th century ‘sultan’ of the West African Mali Empire), had used heavy smoke in that manner to singe livestock, and that it is unlikely the toxic smoke form the scrap tires may be harming them (now) and others as we seem to suggest, else they'd never be alive to engage us.
We attempted our best to disabuse this local perception of the adverse health effects of air pollution the best we could.
We hope to continue to engage communities like Jamestown to help minimize their exposure to air pollution.
See also: Air Pollution Killing More People in Ghana
See also: AirMask & Textiles Company donates Anti-Pollution Face Masks to Jamestown Residents
Please leave your comments below, and let us know what you think!
Source
1. http://www.ghananewsagency.org/health/airmask-company-contributes-to-minimising-polluted-air-inhalation-by-children-141640 (Retrieved November, 2018) ↩
