The General Manager of Upper East Environmental Waste Services Limited, a subsidiary of Zoomlion Ghana Limited, Mr John Sackey, has appealed to the people of the area to consciously and deliberately develop the habit of using the ‘Bolga Baskets’ for markets, offices and events in order to reduce the use plastic products in the region.

He bemoaned that almost everything is packaged in plastics in the region even though the area is a mass-producer of durable baskets.

Mr Sackey was speaking at a forum in Bolgatanga where Zoomlion and the Graphic Communications Group have collaborated to create more environmental sanitation awareness with the ‘Make Ghana Clean Campaign’ project.

He assured the people of Bolgatanga of an all-time clean municipality should they choose their baskets over plastic bags for packaging and as carriers.

Mr Sackey used the opportunity to appeal to the media in the region to help market the Bolga baskets as an alternative to plastics in order for those in basketry to make some income.

The Regional Director of the Information Services Department, Mr Bennin Issifu, who was a participant, called for the creation of Special Environmental Sanitation Courts in the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies to deal with persons who offend the sanitation by-laws.

He said until politicians deliberately develop the political will to allow the assemblies to enforce the by-laws, Ghana cannot become clean because they are the ones stopping the assemblies from enforcing the by-laws for political expediency.

Mr Issifu said if the assemblies were given a free hand to operate, they would be militant enough, with the support of the security agencies, to deal with offenders which will, in turn, bring behavioural change among the citizenry.

The Private Business Manager of Zoomlion Ghana Limited in the Upper East Region, Mr Issahaka Abubakar, disclosed that even though his office has distributed over 5,000 waste bins in the region, the plastic menace still persists and, therefore, called for more households to subscribe and be provided with waste bins to store their waste.