Nelson Manneh

Story: The article "Public Littering: A Mockery of Gambia's Anti-Littering Act of 2007" discusses how widespread public littering in The Gambia makes the existing Anti-Littering Act of 2007 ineffective, transforming it into a disregarded law. The article highlights the environmental and health hazards caused by public litter, the failure of authorities and citizens to enforce and comply with the law, and calls for a more robust approach, possibly including a task force, to enforce the legislation and protect The Gambia's environment and public health. Public littering has become a significant problem in The Gambia, creating an alarming menace for the environment and public health. The Anti-Littering Act of 2007, which was meant to combat indiscriminate waste disposal, has become a "toothless relic" due to a lack of compliance from citizens and effective enforcement by authorities. The indiscriminate dumping of waste, including plastic and other debris, pollutes public places, clogs drains, and threatens the natural beauty and ecological balance of the environment. It is a common knowledge that the primary function of law is to regulate human behavior and ensure a sustainable co-existence within the environment inhabited. This is particularly pertinent when a country’s constitution enshrines the right to life, a monumental cornerstone of all fundamental rights. Without a healthy environment, the enjoyment of this sacred right is greatly and severely compromised which renders it completely useless. It is without doubts that the right to life as enshrined in the 1997 Constitution in section 18, is the most fundamental of all rights, serving as a precondition for the realization or enjoyment of every other fundamental right, both domestically and internationally. In its quest to keep the environment clean, the government of the Gambia in 2007 came up with an Act called the Anti-Littering Act. The law came to put more emphasis on the importance of the environment and the need to protect it but it became mockery because littering continues to happen as the law gets older.

Published in: October 15, 2025