The public has been cautioned against using plastic to cook or store food as the practice is known to be extremely dangerous to health because certain toxic substances are released into the food that is harmful to the human body.
The Head of Built Environment, Environmental Protection Agency, Cindy Badoe said when plastic is used to cover food while cooking, toxins from the plastic were emitted into the food which when eaten, could cause various sicknesses including brain damage to humans.
Speaking at a seminar on Sanitation in Accra on Tuesday, Mrs. Badoe noted that the use of plastic, which started in the mid 1990s for easy carriage of goods, had now become a major cause of waste problem in Ghana with its many repercussions that had overwhelmed most stakeholders.
The Young Women Christian Association, (YWCA), a non-governmental organization, organized the seminar to sensitize women on the sanitation situation within the capital city and how to help “sanitize the environment”.
The seminar, which was chaired by Mrs. Rosemond Abraham, President, YWCA, was attended by various women and church groups, market women and students.
Mrs. Badoe educated the women on the environmental situation and said waste generation, which kept increasing as the urban population increased, had become serious issues for the state.
She said the situation was compounded with the increasing usage of plastic films by various food and beverage retailers throughout the country.
She added that the plastic bags, which do not biodegrade for 10,000 years, were carelessly thrown away and got collected around the city, chocking drains, threatening animals, damaging the soil and polluting the environment.
Mrs. Badoe therefore appealed to the public, particularly women, to adopt a more positive habit by keeping their surroundings clean and educate their children to do same.
The General Secretary, YWCA, Mrs. Esther Owusu said the insanitary situation within the capital city was alarming and that necessitated the organization of the seminar to sensitize women on the situation and how they could help to address the situation.
She said after the seminar, various partners would be identified to help move around the communities to propagate sanitation issues and to mobilize members to clean their environment.
The National Environmental Sanitation Coordinator at Zoomlion, Mr. Robert Kwaku Agyei noted that the various waste management companies would always partner citizens to keep a clean environment.
He said Zoomlion, in partnership with the Government, had established a waste composite site in Accra where waste is being processed while another site had been acquired in Kumasi to be developed and manage waste around the area.