According to a story published on myjoyonline, Public health engineering expert and Waste Care Associates Chief Executive Officer, Lukman Salifu, says Ghana must continue investing in properly engineered landfill sites, while adopting modern technologies such as waste-to-energy systems.
Per the story, his comments follow Local Government, Chieftaincy and Religious Affairs Minister, Mahama Ayariga’s directive for Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to identify land for waste transfer stations and landfill facilities.
The Minister has given the assemblies 30 days to identify at least one acre for transfer stations, while Greater Accra, Greater Kumasi and Sekondi-Takoradi are also expected to identify suitable sites for engineered landfills.
Mr Salifu argues that waste infrastructure must reflect local realities, including available land and the distance waste must travel. He proposes separating waste at source through a two-bin system, allowing organic waste to be processed through biomethanation to produce biogas and inorganic waste to undergo controlled incineration for energy recovery.
He also wants assemblies to audit lands originally reserved for sanitation in community layouts to determine whether they remain available, have been encroached upon or can legally be recovered. Where recovery is impossible, alternative sites would have to be found.
Ghana’s waste crisis has reached a point where the country can no longer afford to treat waste management as a collection problem alone. The debate must move beyond whether we need landfills or modern waste technologies. It needs both but within a properly planned system that reduces what is generated, separates what can be recovered, treats what can be transformed and safely disposes of what remains.
The Local Government Minister’s directive for assemblies to identify land for transfer stations and engineered landfills is therefore significant. Government says the country lacks basic infrastructure, including waste bins, collection equipment, transfer stations and properly managed landfill facilities. Yet securing land should not become another exercise in finding space simply because waste has nowhere else to go.
The scale of the problem demands urgency. The World Bank estimates that Ghana generates nearly 8 million tonnes of solid waste annually with volumes projected to nearly triple by 2050. It also notes that open dumping remains widespread and that land scarcity is already constraining the sector. This means every new landfill must be designed as part of a long-term waste-management strategy, not as a temporary answer to an ever-growing mountain of refuse.
Mr Salifu’s call for assemblies to audit lands originally reserved for sanitation deserves serious attention. Ghana has repeatedly struggled with the consequences of inadequate urban planning and encroachment. Before public authorities spend scarce resources acquiring expensive new land, they should establish what happened to lands already designated for sanitation.
Where public land has been unlawfully occupied, assemblies must determine whether it can be recovered through due process. Where recovery is impossible, alternatives must be identified transparently and early. But land alone will not solve the problem.
The Accra Metropolitan Assembly’s 2026 Waste Optimisation Strategy already recognises the need for source separation, composting, recycling and resource recovery, while government has also indicated that waste separation should begin at household level.
This is where the two-bin proposal becomes important. Separating organic and inorganic waste can make treatment and recovery more practical. Organic material can be directed towards composting or anaerobic digestion, while suitable residual materials can be recovered for energy.
However, waste-to-energy must not become another attractive slogan without the necessary safeguards. Incineration requires appropriate technology, emissions controls, reliable waste streams and competent regulation. The objective must be to prevent uncontrolled burning, not simply replace one form of harmful combustion with another. WHO warns that poorly managed waste contaminates air, soil and water and can contribute to disease and other health risks.
Most importantly, Ghana must stop viewing landfills as the destination for everything. Landfills should be the final destination for residual waste after prevention, reuse, recycling, composting and energy recovery have done their work. But until those systems are fully functional, engineered landfill capacity remains indispensable.
The government should therefore develop a national waste infrastructure plan that links collection, transfer stations, source separation, recycling, composting, waste-to-energy and engineered final disposal. Assemblies should be given clear technical standards, financing mechanisms and timelines, with public reporting on land acquisition and facility development.
Ghana does not need to choose between old and new. It needs to finally build a waste system in which every stage works.
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