-Urgent, practical Municipal regulations, interventions needed
By Edwin M. Fayia, III, fayiaedwin@gmail.com
Liberia’s capital city, Monrovia, situated at the mouth of the Atlantic Ocean is in the middle of a sanitation crisis, with unhygienic and health related hazards occasioned by garbage-laden clogged drainages.
Such drainages remain pregnant with plastic bags, as the garbage-littered Mesurado River at the entrance of the city centre has since been declared highly polluted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), with fish and other creatures therein considered very toxic and not fit for consumption.
In short, the city has hit the roof of sanitation crisis beyond human imaginations.
Shocked and in total disbelief of Monrovia’s sanitation and environmental crisis, Mr. Carlton B. Washington, who had just spent two weeks in Monrovia from the United States, described the looming crisis as a complete menace and nightmare of a one-time proud city in paradise of healthy environment.
The unending sanitation crisis of Monrovia needs urgent and practical interventions by sanitation stakeholders especially the Monrovia City Corporation (MCC) and the EPA, sanitation and environmental commentators have hinted the www.newspublictrust.com.
From the outlook of the current sanitation crisis, almost all the major business districts of Red-Light, Duala, Rally Time and Waterside Markets are engulfed with mountains of rotten garbage piles.
Accordingly, with fast approaching Dry season and its attending heat, the odors from the rotten garbage have begun to send some massive disenchantments and looming health and environmental hazards in several parts of those affected areas in Monrovia.
Currently in Monrovia and its environs, drainages are very clogged with rubbish– thousands of plastic bags, paper, old mattresses and faeces from houses built near the open drainages and dumping most of the waste materials over the plastic bags.
From all indications, sanitation and personnel are indeed of the view that a very strong and practical regulation is need to the combat the wanton disposal of plastic bags and other waste materials in most of Monrovia open drainages.
“We are indeed of the strongest conviction that such a practical and strong municipal regulation backed by practical political and financial support will certainly improve our stressful and unhygienic environment in our one time beautiful city of Monrovia,” Mr. Darlington B. Fahnbutu stressed.
A routine visit by a senior staff of www.newspublictrust.com of the commercial hub of Waterside a week ago observed that many corners of the densely populated market are engulfed with uncollected garbage piles.
Some marketers and street hawkers told this news outlet that the uncollected garbage had been deposited at those locations for the past two weeks.
They pointed out that the frequency of the garbage collection by the MCC’s Sanitation and Environmental Department has been not proactive over the years.
MCC authorities have said they are doing everything to arrest the worsening sanitation problem and it has made the city’s case to some international partners who have started providing some help.
The Waterside street peddlers and some officials of the Liberia Marketing Association underscored the need for the process of collecting from all municipalities of Monrovia should be carried out every day and not weekly.
A specific case in point at the nation largest food market of Red-Light in Paynesville, rotten garbage piles have remained uncollected for almost five to eight months and seeds of variety started to grow on top and middle of the mountain garbage at the Gobachop Market east of the commercial hub.
At the Rally Time Market in the heart of Monrovia, that commercial center has a century-old drainage and near it is a clinic and that area, which has perpetually played host to extensive flooding that also on many occasions carry huge volumes of plastic bags and dangerous waste materials.
In spite of all the difficulties and the exposure of the helpless petty traders and their wares, the brave stand they always endure to sell and do other transactions in the midst of rotten garbage and flood water from Randall Street and other areas.
“As for us, we will continue to sell in the dirt, because, there are nowhere to go and sit as our market building can no longer able to take all of us at the same time,” Charcoal dealer Mary H. Smallwood lamented.
Besides, Madam Smallwood added that the MCC leadership should muster courage and fortitude to close all the open drainages and craft a strong municipal regulation on plastic bags and unfriendly environmental waste in Monrovia and its environs.