Ghana Does Not Need to Be Saved From Its Waste. It Is Already Solving the Problem

THERE is a version of the global waste story which is often presented in a way that portrays the Global South as the main problem to be addressed. This is highlighted by a map of the world dotted with overflowing landfills and rivers choked with plastic. Ghana has spent years inside that story, photographed at Agbogbloshie, measured in landfill tonnage, and cited in reports about inadequate collection and disposal infrastructure.

But in a repurposed crematorium in La, a neighbourhood of Accra,…