West should do us a favour and keep its smelly waste

The National Environment Management Authority sent the right message last week, by ordering that a shipment of solid waste be returned back from whence it came--the United Kingdom.

Indeed, Nema and other authorities need to keep their eyes always open to keep such useless and dangerous cargo at bay. For it is not a secret that unethical western companies find Africa, of course with the complicity of corrupt officials here, an ideal ground to dump their industrial waste, including nuclear waste!

In 2006, for instance, a Dutch company offloaded 400 tonnes of toxic waste at least 12 sites around the capital Abidjan causing 17 deaths and leaving over 30,000 people injured.

Extensive dumping of ‘western waste’ is also said to have taken place in parts of the Somali coastline over the years.

Electronic waste dumping is another major form of pollution where millions of used devices such as computers are imported for reuse on the continent.

While the West has every right to churn waste, it has no right at all to kill us by dumping it at our doorstep. Dandora landfill has been giving us enough pain.