The discussion by most Ghanaians as the 13th African Games came to a close in Ghana over the weekend, is the massive patronage of the games just when the curtains were about to come down.
The finals of the U-20 men’s football match between Ghana and Uganda which was held at the Accra Sports Stadium, saw one of the large number of spectators and football fanatics visiting the 40,000 capacity stadium after a long while especially when the Black Stars have not been living up to expectations lately.
As the theory suggests, large crowds are associated with waste generation and indiscriminate disposal of same.
However, the measures and strategies put in place by Zoomlion, a total waste management solutions company, made it seem like the crowd at the Accra Sports Stadium and in deed all the other venues that hosted the Games, did not generate any waste at all.
According to the Senior Monitoring and Service Quality Officer of the company responsible for the sanitation at the Accra Sports Stadium, Jamila Ghartey, they deployed over a 100 personnel who run two shifts to ensure that no waste was left unattended to.
Speaking in an interview, she mentioned that before the start of every sporting activity at the venue, the morning shift personnel will do a sweep of it stands to collect any waste that might be left behind the night before and also clean the washrooms.
“During the games too, we periodically walk through the stands to collect especially plastics waste and clean the wash rooms every 5 to 10 mins to keep the sanity of the place for the next user,” she stressed.
Zoomlion provided well labelled bins for the collection of general waste and plastic waste.
Aside that the company also dedicated five compassion trucks; one of which was solely for the collection and transportation of plastic waste and the others for general waste.
She commended the patrons of the games for cooperating with the personnel of Zoomlion to ensure that the work was done seamlessly.
“Without their cooperation, we may have had a difficult time keeping the venues cleans especially when the games were ongoing,” she noted.
Ms. Ghartey added that waste management is not the work of one person or institution but a collective effort by all stakeholders.
Even though, it was impossible to interact with the facility manager, the patrons who were elated on the quality of service provided by Zoomlion called for an extension of their contract to ensure that they regularly keep the stadia clean so the facilities do not deteriorate.
A patron, Nii Armah stated “once again Zoomlion has lived up to its billing in providing world class sanitation services at the Games. Kudos to them”.
Prior to the start of the Games which is held every four years, Zoomlion provided a special training to its sanitation officers to augment the company’s provision of sanitation services at the various stadiums and sports facilities that will host the 13th All African Games in Accra from the 8th to 24th of March, 2024.
The recruits who were trained at the Army Peace Operations Training School (APOTS) at Bundase Training Camp were taken through an intensive two-weeks training in basic management skills, drill, cleaning, self-discipline, physical fitness, time management, team work, crowd control among others.
The 13th African Games was held in Ghana between 8 – 23 March 2024.
This is the second time in history that the games were decentralized, as three cities in the host country hosted the event.
The cities chosen for these events were Accra, Kumasi, and Cape Coast.