Every rainy season, Ghana’s cities from Accra to Kumasi to Tamale are submerged under predictable, preventable floods.
The most stubborn culprit clogging our drains is plastic waste. Ghana generates over 3,000 metric tonnes of plastic daily, with an estimated 86% mismanaged: discarded on roadsides, dumped in open drains, and washed into waterways.
The result is not merely environmental degradation; it is a compounding national flood risk that claims lives and destroys livelihoods every year.
Addressing flooding without addressing plastic pollution is like treating a wound without removing the cause.
1. The Legal framework
Ghana possesses a credible legal architecture for combating plastic pollution.
The Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124) strengthens enforcement powers and imposes sanctions on polluters who dump plastic waste into drainage corridors.
The Local Government Act, 2016 (Act 936) empowers Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) to enforce sanitation by-laws.
The Excise Duty (Plastic Packaging) Amendment, 2023 imposes a 5% excise tax on plastic packaging, establishing Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR).
The Sanitation Protection Levy (SPL), 2021 funds waste management and drainage infrastructure.
President Mahama’s 2025 announcement of a phased ban on polystyrene containers and disposable plastics beginning with airports, supermarkets, and universities signals a decisive policy shift.
The laws exist. What is needed is implementation.
2. Practical alternatives
Reducing plastic dependence is about substitution, not sacrifice.
Paper bags and cardboard packaging are biodegradable, widely available, and do not block drainage when discarded.
Ghana’s printing and packaging industry already produces paper products commercially; scaling for retail and food packaging is technically and economically feasible.
Reusable carrier bags and shopping trolleys represent one of the simplest interventions available just as Rwanda and Kenya have demonstrated that behavioural shifts are achievable within short timeframes when backed by policy.
A mandatory consumer charge on plastic bags at the point of sale is among the most effective demand-side tools proven globally.
Even a modest fee causes measurable shifts in behaviour.
Revenue collected should be ring-fenced for drainage maintenance and plastic waste collection.
Ghana’s agricultural wealth also offers homegrown biodegradable alternatives: cassava-based packaging, bamboo utensils, plantain-leaf wrapping, and palm-fibre containers which are already being produced by Ghanaian innovators.
Scaling these innovations requires procurement preferences in public institutions and tax incentives for biodegradable manufacturers.
3. Managing plastics already in the system
Reducing future plastic consumption is necessary but insufficient. Ghana must address the vast volume of plastic already embedded in its environment.
Investment in material recovery facilities, plastic sorting centres, and pelletising plants particularly in Greater Accra, Ashanti, and the Northern regions would intercept plastic before it enters drainage systems.
A national plastics recycling industry could generate tens of thousands of direct and indirect jobs across waste collection, sorting, processing, and manufacturing.
For the hospitality and corporate sectors, a structured incentive framework should include tax reliefs for verified waste separation compliance, green certification for institutions meeting separation targets, and preferential procurement status in government contracting.
Formalised community plastic collection programmes funded from SPL revenues and linked to recycling offtakers can mobilise existing informal waste pickers into structured, remunerated networks.
Schools, markets, and places of worship are natural aggregation points for grassroots collection campaigns.
4. Immediate policy actions
Ghana does not need new legislation as a precondition for action. The following measures are immediately actionable:
• Enforce the phased single-use plastics ban immediately in formal commercial establishments — airports, supermarkets, hotels, and universities — with a funded roadmap to the informal sector within 12 months.
• Introduce a mandatory consumer charge on plastic carrier bags at all retail points of sale, ring-fencing revenue for urban drainage and waste collection.
• Ring-fence excise levy and SPL revenues exclusively for drainage rehabilitation, plastic waste collection, and EPR enforcement, with public reporting obligations.
• Provide tax incentives, procurement preferences, and public-private financing for producers of paper packaging, biodegradable alternatives, and reusable products.
• Empower MMDAs with funding and trained personnel to enforce sanitation by-laws, focusing on drainage corridor protection and community-level plastic collection.
• Invest in national recycling infrastructure structured as public-private partnerships with job creation targets.
• Introduce tax incentives and green certification for hotels, corporates, and institutions that comply with waste separation standards and supply clean plastic to licensed recyclers.
• Institute a national accountability dashboard maintained by the Environmental Protection Authority, tracking plastic reduction targets, levy compliance, recycling volumes, and flood incident data.
Conclusion
Ghana has the laws, the policy commitments, and the domestic innovation to lead West Africa in this transition.
Every plastic bag kept out of our drains is one less contribution to the next flood.
Every paper bag, reusable trolley, or biodegradable container chosen in its place is an act of flood prevention.
Every piece of plastic collected, sorted, and recycled is both a drain cleared and a job created. Reducing plastic is not merely an environmental aspiration — it is a fundamental act of risk management.
Let us begin in earnest.
Writer is a Chartered Risk Analyst | Accra, Ghana
