August 02, 2026
The Breathe Adentan campaign has engaged staff and students of the Frafraha Community Senior High School to educate and raise awareness about one of the Municipality's most persistent environmental health hazards: open burning of household waste.
In 2023, open waste burning caused over 32,000 deaths nationwide,
according to the 2025 State of Global Air report. It’s Ghana's second-leading
risk factor for death after high blood pressure, with household pollution from
solid fuels and waste making up about two-thirds of these deaths.
In Adentan Municipality, a third of households using waste collection
still burn excess waste in dug-out pits. This is not just a distant issue; it
appears as household smoke, children's coughs, and worsening asthma cases.
About one in three households with regular waste collection still burns waste
instead of waiting for pickup. Each fire is a decision with lasting
consequences beyond the smoke.
The
engagement aims to have students, who are future leaders, pledge to champion
clean air under the campaign's rallying call “The 'borla' you burn, your
family breathes.” Change must start with young people, not just adults, as
they carry habits into future homes. Students are messengers; they move between
classrooms and homes, bringing what they learn to others. Engaging schools is a
strategic effort that plants the seeds for today's students to become
tomorrow's household decision-makers, community leaders, and Breathe Adentan
Ambassadors of Clean Air long after the campaign ends.
The
engagement brought together partners from the Environmental Protection
Authority (EPA), Breathe Cities Accra, and SCYCLES Ghana to discuss with
students the health and environmental impacts of burning refuse in neighbourhoods,
a common practice despite regular waste collection services.
The Team
Lead for the campaign, Dr Vincent Kyere, said that “this crisis differs from
many public health emergencies because it is largely self-inflicted and within
our power to end. Unlike distant pollution, open waste burning is a local,
reversible act. The solution is not only for policymakers but also for each
household deciding whether to burn or wait, to separate waste or set it ablaze.
Breathe Adentan aims to empower residents by providing awareness and
alternatives to solve problems they alone can fix.”
The Frafraha Community SHS engagement is the first in a series of school
engagements planned under the Breathe Adentan campaign, part of a wider push to
shift household waste-burning behaviour across the Municipality's twelve
electoral areas. The campaign will collaborate with existing municipal efforts,
such as the Adentan Waste to Wages Project (AdWAWA), which aims to reduce,
reuse, and recycle at least half of the Municipality's solid waste.
In her opening remarks, Ms Augusta Lartey
Young, the Assistant Headmistress of Frafraha Community SHS thanked the Breathe
Adentan team for the initiative and for partnering with the school to lead the
charge in reducing air pollution and keeping the air clean for all. "The
school is always open to initiatives like this from the private sector, because
you bring the resources and expertise to drive real behaviour change on social
issues in our communities, something we cannot always do alone," she said.
"I hope this will be a long-term partnership, with students benefiting
from information and education to keep the air clean for generations to
come."
Dr Sampson Manukure Atiemo, Chief Executive
Officer of the Centre for Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLES Ghana), an environmental
NGO dedicated to promoting the sustainable use of resources, urged students to
see waste differently. "Burning waste deprives you of income," he
said, noting that waste segregation can become an income-generating venture
that reduces the very incentive to burn in the first place. He charged students
to serve as ambassadors on campus, to foster an income-oriented attitude toward
plastic waste management, and stressed that the initiative’s success at the
school would ultimately depend on the environmental club and the wider student
body carrying it forward.
I used to think the smoke from burning
rubbish was just something we lived with. Now I know it's making people sick,
maybe even people in my own house. I'm proud to be part of the Breathe Adentan
project, and I'm going to make sure my family stops burning and starts
separating our waste, starting today for income," said Esinam, a Home
Economics student.
Stakeholders
were urged to collaborate on waste management and adopt healthy behaviours to
protect health and the environment.
