Proposal: Using Agricultural Waste as a binding agent for soil block stabilizer for
affordable housing units to ease housing deficit in Ghana
INTRODUCTION
One of the major problems Ghana faces in recent and current times is the absence of
enough housing units for domestic dwelling. A recent article by the Peacefm online on
January, 2015 revealed that the country’s (Ghana) housing shortfall is estimated at 1.7
million units, and expected to hit 2 million by 2018. By this, Ghana needs to construct more
houses in order to meet up the demand in question.
This persisting problem which has had a great impact on lack of housing units is as results
of the expensive cost of construction currently especially the binding agent - cement. In
Ghana, the cost of cement has gone up to more than 47% over the last five years and this is
quiet significant.
However, Agevi (1999) has it that, the cladding makes up to 60% of the entire physical
structure and cement is the key binding material used for these soil blocks for cladding.
This means the cost of construction could be reduced if the price on 60% cladding is
reduced significantly.
Research in recent times have also shown that some other alternative materials like fly ash
could supplement or play the role of cement and also give sufficient strength for soil block.
Again, some laboratory works Yalley et al, in 2013 also proved that, ashes from agricultural
wastes like cane sugar also have some great binding properties for soil block stabilization.
Furthermore, it was recalled that Ghana produces much more waste than it recycles.
According Modern Ghana News 2007 that, Accra alone (Capital City of Ghana) produced up
to 60 tonnes of plastic waste per day, a fractional percentage of the total 22,000 tonnes per
year throughout Ghana. Out of this, only 2% was realized to be recycled with the remaining
98% finding their way into open drains and other waterways resulting in subsequent
flooding.
Thus, this works seeks to use ash from either agricultural or industrial wastes as soil block
stabilizer for affordable housing. This means, raw materials will be readily available for this
piece of work and the countless numerous poor sanitation problems could also minimized
and more affordable houses been constructed as well.
SCOPE
This work will basely concentrate on how to use waste (ash) as a soil block stabilizer. This
means, using the ash from such waste as an alternative binding material source instead of
the conventional cement which is unaffordable and thus making construction of housing
units very expensive in Ghana. Apart from the waste, there is also readily availability of soil
(laterite) in large quantity for the said works.
GOALS/ OBJECTIVES
The main significance of this research work is to do a more laboratory analysis of the
alternative use of binding agents for soil block for affordable housing. The main raw
materials for the proposed work will be agricultural waste and industrial waste ash. This is
mainly to test for the crushing strength of the soil block produced with sand and the
supposed ash from the waste mentioned early. The main proposed benefit from this project
is to produce a standard strength soil block with little or without cement to help construct
affordable housing. These structures to be constructed may include: Sanitation and human
dwelling structures with the aim of:
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Ease the housing deficit
Construct cheaper but sustainable household latrines.
The use of the technology will bring employment for professional in the
construction sector
To throw more light on the sanitation, a recent survey conducted in one of the communities
in Takoradi (Ntankoful) with about 3,000 population in the Western Region of Ghana
revealed that, about 70% of the population does not have household latrines and by this,
they practice open defecation since the public latrine is not enough for them. The feedback
from the inhabitants reveal the same findings about how expensive the price of cement bag
(50kg) which has contributed to the mass populate not been to afford it for the
construction of their own latrines at home. The story is not different from about 10 villages
visited in the Central Regions of Ghana.
Currently, Global Communities an international NGO whose headquarters is based in USA
as part their sanitation intervention goals is to increase the household latrines. The
intervention gives out 40% of the total cost of the household latrine to the beneficiary and
the remaining 60% is been paid by the beneficiary. The cost of construction for a single
seater latrine (E.g. KVIP) in Ghana is GH¢ 4,000.00 equivalent a $1000.00. The breakdown
for sharing is that, $400.00 by Global Communities as counterpart funding and $600.00 by
the beneficiary.
What informed looking into Global Communities intervention was that, the beneficiary
contributions are not been met (Beneficiary cannot pay their counterpart funding) all
pointing to the high cost of constructing a single household latrine, prior to the high
unstable variation cost in the price of cement.