A friend called me a few days after the floods with an unusual problem.
His septic tank had overflowed, and he couldn’t get anyone to come and empty it.
He wasn’t alone.
Across Accra, similar stories have been unfolding. Households are calling every number they can find, looking for vacuum trucks to empty overflowing septic tanks. Some are being told the next available truck is days away. Others simply can’t get through. Those lucky enough to secure a booking are finding themselves in a queue with dozens of other households facing the same problem.
The floodwaters may have gone.
The rush to remove human waste from homes and communities has only just begun.
It is not a story that will dominate the headlines. It won’t trend on social media for very long. But it may be one of the most important stories to emerge from this year’s floods.
We spend a lot of time talking about drains, desilting, and flood prevention, and rightly so. But once the water recedes, another battle begins. Septic tanks that have been overwhelmed by floodwaters must be emptied quickly. Human waste has to be safely removed before it becomes a much bigger public health problem.
When that doesn’t happen, the consequences are obvious.
The smell is the first thing people notice.
The health risks are what they should be worried about.
Overflowing septic tanks can expose families and communities to human waste, contaminate surrounding areas, increase the risk of waterborne diseases, and make it much harder for people to return to normal life. Recovery from a flood isn’t complete simply because the streets are dry.
Safe sanitation is part of recovery too.
What this moment has exposed is something bigger than a temporary inconvenience. It has revealed how dependent our cities are on septic tank emptying services, services we rarely think about until we desperately need them.
The men and women who operate these vacuum trucks may not wear uniforms like firefighters or paramedics, but after a flood they become just as essential. Without them, human waste remains trapped in overflowing septic tanks, leaving neighbourhoods vulnerable long after the rain has stopped.
There is another lesson here.
Whenever demand consistently exceeds supply, the market is trying to tell us something.
For entrepreneurs, this is an opportunity hiding in plain sight. More vacuum trucks. Better equipment. Smarter dispatch systems. Faster response times. For banks, it is a chance to finance an industry that performs an essential public service. For city authorities, it is an opportunity to work more closely with private operators before the next rainy season arrives.
Not every business opportunity begins in a boardroom.
Some begin with a problem that thousands of people are experiencing at exactly the same time.
This is one of them.
As our cities grow and rainfall becomes more intense, the demand for septic tank emptying services will only increase. The question is whether our capacity will grow with it.
Perhaps next year, when the rains come again, finding someone to empty an overflowing septic tank should not be as difficult as it is today.
Because if there is one lesson from this year’s floods, it is this:
The crisis doesn’t end when the water goes down.
For many families, that’s when the real scramble to safely remove human waste begins.
