Waste found on our streets, gutters and waterways is the result of illegal dumping by Freetown residents and businesses.
For those residents living in hard-to-reach and informal settlements, the lack of access for waste service providers is often combined with a lack of willingness to pay for waste disposal, resulting in significant localized illegal dumping that contaminates their waterways and creates a health hazard, providing a breeding ground for mosquitoes and other disease vectors.
Tackling the sanitation challenges of Freetown requires addressing the challenge of waste collection in hard-to-reach and informal communities. Yesterday morning, Freetown City Council in collaboration with CRS, provided two tricycles each (total of four tricycles), cleaning tools and rain gear to youth groups established in the Kolleh Town and Cocklebay informal communities. The 40 female and male youth will provide household waste collection services to their communities and earn a living and acquire micro business skills in the process.
As part of our community engagement at Kolleh Town yesterday morning, the chiefs and other stakeholders committed to ensuring that community residents cooperate with the waste collection groups, that a self-funded community clean up is undertaken to improve local hygiene conditions and that the youth groups only use the tricycles for their intended purpose.
This sanitation intervention is possible for Kolleh Town and Cocklebay communities as they have vehicular access. Other solutions are being designed for hard-to-reach communities such as Mount Aureol that have no vehicular access!
The importance of land use planning and a building permit regime which takes into consideration the delivery of sanitation and other municipal services cannot be overstated when addressing sanitation in our city. Freetown City Council is therefore looking forward to collaboration with the Ministry of Lands and the eventual devolution of these functions to local councils across Sierra Leone.
