(Feature)
By: Saidu Jalloh (Intern)
Freetown the capital city of Sierra Leone, West Africa is known for its beaches and historical role in the transatlantic slave trade. The fallen Cotton Tress was a symbol of emancipation. Freetown is being threatening by, rubbish, garbage and poor dumping site. Rubbish and waste in Freetown’s street, waterways and gutters is polluting the environment and the city’s water, leading to increase in diseases such as malarial, typhoid and diarrhea.
Urban development and planning challenges facing Freetown, rapid growth, resource constraints informal settlements, inadequate planning regimes, colonial neglect and racial bias in planning the urban form created a city which is ill-prepared to cope with independence growth. For as long as plastic waste remain uncollected and littered in the street in Freetown, we all should concern about it because it is hazardous
This article is not only concerned about waste or rubbish on the streets of Freetown but also on the public defecating and urinating on the streets of Freetown by street beggars and passersby. Since majority of beggars cannot afford a dwelling home, the streets of Freetown has become one for them. These types of beggars can be seen in a strategic point in Freetown like Kissy Road, Wilberforce Street and Goodrich Street where the sleep and throw garbage and excrete all night.
Sierra Leoneans are selfish, they only care about themselves and their houses and not about their town, cities. The city does not belong to them; it involves other people. Maybe it has something to do with tribalism and nepotism a dislike and dehumanization of those belong to other group. Where there is such dislike for others, there would be some spillage of that feeling when it comes to things public hygiene and cleanliness.
Sewage and waste infrastructure have failed to keep up with urban expansion, leaving Freetown to drawn in its excreta. With the level of focus on particularly single use waste, and the council campaign Transforming Freetown. Waste management over the years has been drastically reduced.
Freetownians litter the waterways with empty plastic, nylon and various kinds of filth. Another practice is open defecation on the waterways, littering it with human waste in the form of urine and fences. This is totally unacceptable. We have organizations empty their waste water and various chemicals pollution in the waterways.
Due to poor sanitation, environmentally unfriendly attitude of sachet water companies and number of other factors, management of water and resources and access to clean drinking water poses a major challenge to Freetown dwellers. This pure water business as it is popularly known, now generate tonnes of waste that clog drains, litter the streets and waterways, and ultimately alter ecosystem. As in other parts of the world, most consumer goods are now being packed with plastic, nylon materials which often times due to inefficient waste management practice find their way into water bodies thereby polluting the marine ecosystem.
As millions of residents who don’t have access to standard toilets resort to open defecation and indiscriminate disposal of urine and feces in the street of Freetown which is unattractive to tourists. Block drain, gutters and canals that emit foul odor have continue to be a feature of Freetown metropolis.
Many Freetownians have come to accept it as city life. Most parts of the sprawling city are flooded during rainy season due to blocked drains, gutters and canal arising from the mountains of refuse that litter every part of the densely populated commercial nerve center.
The Transform Freetown project is a good initiative launched by the government and Freetown City Council to help reduce waste and litters that have been disturbing the city.
