Environmental Engineer, Dr Juliet Ohemeng-Ntiamoah, has called for increased investment in Ghana's sanitation and waste management sector, warning that the country's growing waste crisis cannot be solved without making sanitation a national priority.

Speaking on Joy FM's Super Morning Show on Wednesday, July 8, she said many of the challenges confronting sanitation stem from years of inadequate financing rather than solely from public indiscipline.

"Sanitation is expensive, and that is something we need to understand as a country," she said.

According to Dr Ohemeng-Ntiamoah, Ghana cannot continue to underfund sanitation while expecting cleaner communities.

"We cannot treat sanitation as a low-priority, less-financed area and then, at the same time, expect us to see cleaner spaces. I know there's a lot of conversation talking about the indiscipline of people, but the actual issue is there's not much investment in our waste management."

She said Ghana's waste management challenges extend well beyond waste collection, with inadequate recycling, poor waste segregation, and overstretched landfill facilities compounding the problem.

"Even after the collection, what happens to the waste itself is something that is a whole conversation on its own."

She lamented the country's limited recycling efforts and the absence of widespread waste sorting systems.

"We don't do enough recycling, and we don't even do sorting of our waste, which also means that everything would have to be sent to the landfill site, and even the landfill sites are almost full."

According to her, the lack of available landfill space is contributing to indiscriminate dumping by some waste collectors.

"Because they're almost full, these aboboyaa (waste collectors) pick them and dump them anywhere."

To reverse the situation, Dr Ohemeng-Ntiamoah urged government to elevate waste management as a national development priority.

"The first thing I'll recommend that we do as a country is treating waste management as a priority."

She also called for the development of properly engineered landfill facilities capable of safely managing waste while generating renewable energy.

"We need to provide well-engineered landfill sites so that the waste doesn't return to the environment untreated. We can even recover methane gas and use it."

Dr Ohemeng-Ntiamoah said investing in modern waste infrastructure would not only improve environmental sanitation but also create opportunities for resource recovery and cleaner energy production.