Plastic Wastes, Threat To Human Health – Perm Sec
By: Darlington Omotoso, Precious Demide & Mercy Auta
The Permanent Secretary, Federal Capital Territory Administration (FCTA), Mr. Olusade Adesola, has said that plastic waste has become a major threat to human health, as it also contributes to environmental degradation.
The Permanent Secretary, who stated this while flagging-off activities to commemorate World Environment Day 2023, with the theme; “Beat Plastic Poluttion,” at the premises of the Abuja Environmental Protection Board, (AEPB), Central Business District, Abuja, noted that though, it also has many beneficial uses.
According to him, “the dark side of it is the way we produce, use and dispose plastic materials is not only polluting ecosystems, but also putting human and animal health in grave danger as a result of destabilizing the climate.”
The Permanent Secretary, who was represented at the occasion by the Director, Abuja Environmental Protection Board, (AEPB), Engr. Osi Braimah, said that globally, plastic waste situation has assumed a worrisome dimension and in the FCT.
Adesola added that it has also become endemic with drainage channels, canals, and waterways littered with various plastic wastes, which contributes significantly to climate change, resulting in short term damages, such as erosion and flooding due to blockages of streams and water ways.
His words: “This is why the matter is of utmost priority, as the world marks yet another World Environment Day, bringing to the fore the awareness of plastic management as an adaptation strategy to Climate Change.”
“I am of the opinion that the policy statement contained in the recent United Nations Environmental Report, that only an integrated systemic shift from a linear to a circular economy can keep plastics out of our ecosystems and bodies, and in the economy is very accurate, he stressed.
He restated that the report lays out key elements of the required market transformation, rethinking and redesigning products as well as reusing, recycling, reorienting and diversifying markets.
Also speaking during the roadshow which commenced from Central Business District to Utako market and Utako Motor parks, in the Phase II of Abuja, the Chair-person of the World Environment Day Celebration Committee in A.E.P.B, Ms Rebecca Mamven said the sensitization on plastic waste recycling at the Utako motor park is strategic in enlightening the public on the beneficial uses of plastic and the harmful effects of plastic to the environment.
“Plastic take a very long time to degrade. When you dispose of these plastics either on water or soil, it affects the quality of the soil and the aquatic lifeforms”, she reiterated.
Ms Mamven, encouraged Nigerians to sustain the environment for successive generations.
She said activities to mark the day will continue with environmental project exhibition by Secondary School students on solutions to plastic pollution and the grand finale will be at AEPB’s Headquarters.
