Ghanaian musician Sister Derby has criticised a growing trend in Accra of releasing balloons into the sky to honour the dead.
In a post on X on 27 September, she said mourners were sending up as many as 50 to 100 balloons at vigils and asked where the debris ended up.
“Like seriously? Where do we think they end up? Is it necessary?” she wrote.
Sister Derby said the practice added to plastic waste and could block gutters. She linked the balloons to wider rubbish problems in the capital and referred to cleanup work by the environmental group Buz Stop Boys.
“So all the plastics/rubbers/rubbish the @buzstopboys dey show we nu, you think it’s from who?” she asked.
In the same post she described heaven as “Seychelles” and hell as Agbogbloshie and Fadama — two Accra sites long associated with scrap, e-waste and dumps.
Balloon releases are used in some Ghanaian funeral and vigil ceremonies as a public farewell. Environmental campaigners argue that latex and foil balloons return to streets, drains and waterways once they deflate.
Sister Derby’s comments present the tributes as a short-lived gesture with a lasting waste cost.
