The Breathe Adentan campaign has engaged staff and students of the Frafraha Community Senior High School to educate and raise awareness about one of the Municipality’s most persistent environmental health hazards: open burning of household waste.
In 2023, open waste burning caused over 32,000 deaths nationwide, according to the 2025 State of Global Air report.
It’s Ghana’s second-leading risk factor for death after high blood pressure, with household pollution from solid fuels and waste making up about two-thirds of these deaths.
In Adentan Municipality, a third of households using waste collection still burn excess waste in dug-out pits.
This is not just a distant issue; it appears as household smoke, children’s coughs, and worsening asthma cases.
About one in three households with regular waste collection still burns waste instead of waiting for pickup. Each fire is a decision with lasting consequences beyond the smoke.
The engagement aims to have students, who are future leaders, pledge to champion clean air under the campaign’s rallying call “The ‘borla’ you burn, your family breathes.” Change must start with young people, not just adults, as they carry habits into future homes.
Students are messengers; they move between classrooms and homes, bringing what they learn to others.
Engaging schools is a strategic effort that plants the seeds for today’s students to become tomorrow’s household decision-makers, community leaders, and Breathe Adentan Ambassadors of Clean Air long after the campaign ends.
The engagement brought together partners from the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), Breathe Cities Accra, and SCYCLES Ghana to discuss with students the health and environmental impacts of burning refuse in neighbourhoods, a common practice despite regular waste collection services.
The Team Lead for the campaign, Dr Vincent Kyere, said that “this crisis differs from many public health emergencies because it is largely self-inflicted and within our power to end. Unlike distant pollution, open waste burning is a local, reversible act.
The solution is not only for policymakers but also for each household deciding whether to burn or wait, to separate waste or set it ablaze. Breathe Adentan aims to empower residents by providing awareness and alternatives to solve problems they alone can fix.”
The Frafraha Community SHS engagement is the first in a series of school engagements planned under the Breathe Adentan campaign, part of a wider push to shift household waste-burning behaviour across the Municipality’s twelve electoral areas.
The campaign will collaborate with existing municipal efforts, such as the Adentan Waste to Wages Project (AdWAWA), which aims to reduce, reuse, and recycle at least half of the Municipality’s solid waste.
In her opening remarks, Augusta Lartey Young, the Assistant Headmistress of Frafraha Community SHS thanked the Breathe Adentan team for the initiative and for partnering with the school to lead the charge in reducing air pollution and keeping the air clean for all.
“The school is always open to initiatives like this from the private sector, because you bring the resources and expertise to drive real behaviour change on social issues in our communities, something we cannot always do alone,” she said.
“I hope this will be a long-term partnership, with students benefiting from information and education to keep the air clean for generations to come.”
Kwaku Anim, Technical Officer at the Environmental Protection Authority (EPA), speaking on behalf of the Authority, reiterated its commitment to championing pollution-free communities by enforcing regulations, including the Environmental Protection Act, 2025 (Act 1124).
“For us at EPA, the safety and health of communities is at the forefront of our activities and will ensure all Ghanaians abide by the law to keep our air clean,” he concluded.
Dr Sampson Manukure Atiemo, Chief Executive Officer of the Centre for Sustainable Cycles (SCYCLES Ghana), an environmental NGO dedicated to promoting the sustainable use of resources, urged students to see waste differently.
“Burning waste deprives you of income,” he said, noting that waste segregation can become an income-generating venture that reduces the very incentive to burn in the first place.
He charged students to serve as ambassadors on campus, to foster an income-oriented attitude toward plastic waste management, and stressed that the initiative’s success at the school would ultimately depend on the environmental club and the wider student body carrying it forward.
“I used to think the smoke from burning rubbish was just something we lived with. Now I know it’s making people sick, maybe even people in my own house. I’m proud to be part of the Breathe Adentan project, and I’m going to make sure my family stops burning and starts separating our waste, starting today for income,” said Esinam, a Home Economics student.
Stakeholders were urged to collaborate on waste management and adopt healthy behaviours to protect health and the environment.
About Breathe Adentan Campaign
Breathe Adentan is a UniMAC-IJ Master’s Development Communication student-led social and behaviour change communication campaign addressing air pollution and open waste burning in the Adentan Municipality.
Through school engagements, community outreach, and partnerships with local and national institutions, the campaign works to reduce open waste burning and improve air quality for residents across the Municipality’s twelve electoral areas.
Media Contact:
Breathe Adentan Campaign
Emmanuel Opoku Boadu: 0546024052
