If you throw trash on the ground in Lomé no one will blink an eye because there is no public garbage collection, making it one of the dirtiest cities in the world with disposed plastic and waste on the streets and roads everywhere.
Residents either cannot afford private trash collection or choose not to pay for it so people resort to burning waste out in the open specially at night.
But what many Togolese don’t know is that plastic incineration does not make it disappear but instead transforms it into something that is just as bad: Toxic ash and fumes, which can cause cancer besides damaging the environment and people’s health.
If you are lucky to stay at a hotel or house where no one is burning trash at night, which will irritate your throat, make it very hard to sleep, and expose you to cancer causing chemicals, you will probably ingest the toxins from the ash in the food you eat and water you drink. Burnt waste bonfire patches are often found next to farmland where goats, chickens and other animals roam. Toxic ash contaminates ground water, which the Togolese depend on for farming and drinking. Children play in these areas too and people bring the toxic particles from bonfires’ ash into their homes in their shoes.
In fact, even in Europe chicken eggs in the proximity of garbage incinerator plants have been determined to not be fit for human consumption because of the presence of poisonous chemicals like dioxins, furans, benzodiazepines(a)pyrenes and polyaromatic hydrocarbons among others, which have been found to cause cancer.
| Burnt Garbage Patch next to farmland in Baguida, Lomé |
Many Togolese simply don’t understand the dangers of incinerated plastic and allow their children to ignite trash and plastic bonfires at night. Many elders when informed of the dangers of burning plastic state they are not surprised people are dying of cancer.
Plastic garbage is also found everywhere in Lomé’s beaches as if the ocean spits it out back to the land. Some sources say in 2050 there will be more plastic in the oceans than fish and unfortunately Lomé’s beaches look like this prediction will come true.
Copyright © 2024 Fernan Trillo
REFERENCES:
