Water for people.pdf - WHO Thailand Digital Repository

P R O M O T I N G C L E A N E R I N D U S T R Y F O R E V E R Y O N E ’ S B E N E F I T / 2 3 1Box 9.1: Industrial water pollution control in the Gulf of Guinea basin (western Africa)The Gulf of Guinea is one of the world’s most productivemarine areas, rich in fishery resources, oil and gasresources, and precious minerals, and an important globalreservoir of marine biological diversity. It is bordered bycountries in West and Central Africa adjacent to theAtlantic Ocean where pollution from residential andindustrial sources has affected its waters and resulted inhabitat degradation, loss of biological diversity andproductivity, and degenerating human health.To reverse this trend the countries of the region haveadopted an integrated and holistic approach, applying thelarge marine ecosystem concept to the sustainablemanagement of the regional environment and its livingresources. Their communal project, ‘Water PollutionControl and Biodiversity Conservation in the Gulf of GuineaLarge Marine Ecosystem’, financed by the GlobalEnvironment Facility (GEF), recognized that pollution fromland-based sources contributes most of the pollution fluxto the Gulf and placed high priority on the assessment,prevention and control of this pollution. An initialenvironmental survey used fish, benthic invertebrates andother biological indicator species to measure pollutioneffects on the marine and coastal ecosystems.A major focus of the project was on industrialpollutioncontrol. A rapid, semi-quantitative assessment ofthe land-based sources of pollution in the region wasundertaken in each participating country. Industriessituated within the 30–50 kilometres strip of the shorelinein the countries were assessed in terms of themanufacturing processes employed, the types andquantities of waste generated, and the nature of wastetreatment and discharge practices.The results of the survey demonstrated:■ an absence of pollution abatement infrastructure in theregion leading to uncontrolled discharge of untreatedwastes and effluents;■ an absence of common effluent discharge standards;■ an absence of environmental impact assessment, orenvironmental auditing during operation;■ insufficient human and material resources assigned tomonitoring and enforcement;■ inadequate financial resources for implementation andcompliance enforcement;■ an absence of reliable data and information intopographical maps with Global Positioning System(GPS) coordinates of the selected industries; and■ insufficient public awareness of pollution issues.These assessments have provided the basis for:■ elaborating suggestions to improve industrialperformance through the adoption of cleanerproduction methodologies and improved productionprocess technology;■ the establishment of national cleaner productioncentres;■ the development of strategies and policies toencourage reduction, recycling, recovery and reuse ofindustrial wastes;■ the formulation of a draft version of the RegionalEffluent and Discharge Standard; and■ collaborative Integrated Coastal Zone Management(ICZM) planning to regulate development in the region.A pilot initiative in Ghana, the Waste Stock ExchangeManagement System, incorporating reuse and recyclingphilosophies to reduce waste input to the coastal andfreshwater environments, was enthusiastically embraced bymanufacturing industries with the slogan ‘one person’swaste, another person’s raw material’. Cleaner productionmethodologies are being transferred to industries basedon coastal lagoons in the Accra and Tema areas via ademonstration project led by the United Nations IndustrialDevelopment Organization (UNIDO).