Story by: Prosper Selassi Agbitor
President John Dramani Mahama has pushed for a ban on single use plastic urging manufacturing companies to discontinue its production.
The president indicated that food packages would henceforth be done with paper and aluminium materials.
“The journey from landfill to landmarks is not easy but it way a journey worth making. As we plant trees, and reduce plastic pollution, we honour our ancestors and invest in our descendent s just as our forebears rose to the challenge of independence, we must rise to the challenge of environmental leadership.
I often say the future is not what we enter, it is something we create for ourselves”, the president charged.
Mr. Mahama added, “so today on this World Environment Day, let us crete a future for ourselves”, the president added.
Education Minister,Honourable Haruna Iddrisu charges Ghanaian students to become leader of action in safeguarding the environment ensuring cleanliness.
The Minister expressed the Education Ministry’s readiness to collaborate with Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources to distribute trees for planning under the government’s tree for life initiative.
Also, the Minister noted that the Education Ministry would team up with the Ministry of Environment and Science,the ministry of Lands and Natural Resources as well as the Ministry of Education to distribute and ensure that each child plants a tree.
He disclosed that the coming days would see an incorporation into the curriculum a new instructive model dubbed, “The Child Beyond Academic Skills”, a model that aimed at taking the child beyond numeracy and literacy which may be a tree planting or painting or something which may grow them as true responsible citizens of Ghana.
The initiative according to the Minister will be tailored towards ending the pollution menace.
“Yes, we will continue to use plastic but the way we handle it,and the way we discard it has swarmed the world with pollution.To the Ghanaian students we stand up and our commitment to end pollution for a better quality life and a better water”, he urged.
On his part, the Minister of Environment, Science and Technology,Honourable Murtala Mohammed disclosed that the World Environment Day was not just a day on the calendar but a clarion call rallying for a collective global action to protect the environment upon which all lives depend.
Plastic pollution, being one the worsening challenges with over 400,000,000 tons of plastics being generated every year with a significant amount ending up in the oceans, lakes and rivers,forests posing challenges with most of them ending in the belly of fishes.
The situation,he said is endangering the health of living things.
“We are not here to lament but to commit to solution and we are here to chart a new path with responsibility and action. Our markets are filled with single use plastics threatening biodiversity,public health and sustainable development. But today, we are not here to lament. We are here to commit to solutions and say, enough is enough'”,he noted.
He indicated that the time has come to chart a new path, a path of innovation,responsibility and action in line with the vision of Mr. President’s vision.
