From Maurice Okafor, Enugu
The chairman of National Institute of Marketing, Nigeria (NIMN) Enugu State chapter, Dr. Oliver Ngwuoke, has described the establishment of recycling plants in Nigeria as a panacea for curtailing plastics wastes and creating jobs for many unemployed youths in the country.
He called on Nigerian industrialists and entrepreneurs to establish recycling plants in Nigeria,stating it yet an untapped business venture in the country..
Dr. Ngwuoke made the appeal at a public lecture delivered in Enugu by the state chapter of NIMN to mark 2021 World Consumer Rights Day with theme,’Tackling Plastic Polution’
He stressed that most products are currently packaged in plastic materials with less attention on how to manage the plastic covers after using the contents,even as plastic materials are highly insolvent in the soil.
He lamented that the littering of plastic materials indiscriminately in Nigeria is constituting a serious environmental hazard in Nigeria,but such wastes are converted to wealth in civilised countries.
His words: “Most products we use today are packaged with plastic and in the course of buying and using them, we abuse the disposal which takes a very long time to dacay. Plastics contaminate the environment. It pollutes land, sea and even the air when burnt,” he pointed out.
Resource persons who delivered papers on the occasion on the theme of the day, said the best way is to reduce the use of plastics because of the dangers they constitute for man and for animals, especially aquatic lives.
Prof. Chukwudi Nwaizugbo of the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, lamented that plastic pollution has the tendency to rub mankind of aquatic lives in the near future if the use of plastic is not minimised or discontinued.
“In years to come, the world may not have adequate aquatic life because plastics will cover the water. The marine is being threatened. Humans too will suffer as the aquatic life suffers,” he said pointing out that by 2050, it is projected that the quantum of non-degradable products will increase, thereby jeopardising both humans and mammals.
