Water and Waste

Water & Waste Ghana Fieldwork

‘Aboboyaa’s’ (tricycles) are used by some waste collectors in Greater Accra who charge households a fee for the scheduled collection of their waste. 


Within selected enumeration areas, quadrants are used by enumerators to measure areas where waste has been burnt.


Open piles of dumped household waste are common practice across informal settlements of Greater Accra. Our enumerators collect information on these waste piles using photos and surveys, which record counts of different plastics and their material composition.


Water and Waste’s field team cross an open drain which is being used as a temporal dumpsite by community members, posing a significant threat to health.


Bags of sorted plastic-sachet waste await collection outside households. In recent years, micro-enterprises, which collect and sort plastic waste and then sell them to recycling companies, have emerged across Greater Accra. 


An open market stall in our enumeration areas in Greater Accra: traders sell on table tops under simple corrugated iron sheds. The reliance on disposable plastics for packaging food items is evident.


Enumerators survey shopping habits and product information at a supermarket in Greater Accra.


One of Water and Waste’s field teams visit a recycling centre where the manager explains their waste recycling practices.


Water and Waste’s second field team are seen here with the community chief and assemblyman of one of the research enumeration areas.