Accra, Feb. 23, – Accra’s eastern corridor could face a major waste disposal breakdown within weeks as the Kpone landfill approaches exhaustion, prompting urgent government intervention.
The Minister for Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs, Ahmed Ibrahim, sounded the alarm after an on-site inspection with city authorities and ministry officials.
According to him, the landfill — currently the principal disposal facility serving 10 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies in eastern Greater Accra — may run out of space within a month.
He described the situation as a looming public health emergency, especially as the dry season heightens the risks associated with unmanaged solid waste.
The Minister dismissed the option of carting refuse to far-off locations such as Nsawam or western Accra, citing prohibitive transport costs and logistical strain on assemblies.
“This is not a situation we can postpone. We must act immediately,” he stressed, noting that any long-term engineered landfill solution would take at least six months to develop.
Mr Ibrahim indicated that after the State of the Nation Address, he would convene all 29 Metropolitan, Municipal and District Chief Executives in the Greater Accra Region. Each assembly will be required to present detailed sanitation reports, which will feed into a Cabinet memorandum for executive action.
Technical briefings during the visit revealed deeper structural challenges.
Ms Bertha Essel of the Tema Metropolitan Assembly explained that the engineered landfill, originally built with World Bank support and designed to last up to 25 years, was prematurely overstretched after becoming the main disposal site for multiple assemblies following the closure of Insumia.
The engineered facility was capped in 2019, forcing authorities to reopen an older landfill section as an emergency measure.
That stopgap arrangement is now under extreme pressure. The site’s designed height limit of 16 metres has been exceeded, with waste piling up to nearly 24 metres. This has resulted in unstable access routes, operational delays, and frequent leachate spillages.
Compounding the problem, the reopened section lacks modern containment systems such as geomembrane liners and leachate collection pipes, raising environmental concerns.
The facility currently receives between 600 and 800 tonnes of waste daily — a volume officials say is unsustainable given the remaining space.
Authorities are exploring temporary measures to extend the landfill’s lifespan by a few months, but experts agree that without immediate structural intervention, Accra could soon confront a full-blown sanitation emergency.
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