In a bid to curb the menace of plastic pollution, the Federal Ministry of Environment has commemorated the 2018 World Environment Day with the Theme “Beat Plastic Pollution.” HELEN OJI reports.
The Environment Ministry has been empowering people, taking climate action and protecting environment, as well as aligning sectorial intervention with the Economic Recovery and Growth Plan (ERGP) and collective participation of all Nigerians towards ensuring a sustainable environment befitting of a new Nigeria.
The Beat Plastic Pollution is a call to action to love your environment and bearing in mind the peculiar nature on plastic and polythene disposal. These constitute a major environmental concern that the federal government has been grappling with; the alarming rate of plastic pollution is poisoning waters and lands, injuring marine live, land and animals as well as affecting the overall health and living condition of the people.
In the global world, several countries have outlawed the use of plastic bags, such as Eritrea, China, Rwanda, Mauritania, Morocco and most recently Kenya. While some have placed a fee on the use of plastic bags like England, Northern Ireland, Wales, Scotland and South Africa. It is therefore safe to say that most countries have woken up to the environmental impact of plastic bags and bottles.
Establishing plastic waste on Beat Plastic Pollution
The Minister of State for Environment, Ibrahim Usman Jibril, while briefing journalist to commemorate the World Environment Day 2018, holding all over the world, said that the Ministry is also developing a National Plastic Waste Recycling Programme, as well as establishing plastic waste recycling plants across the country in partnership with state governments.
“In addition, the federal government is also collaborating with state governments to establish plastic waste recycling plants under the community-based waste management programme in the ministry. And at present, a total of eight plants have already been completed and handed over to the states, while 18 others are at various stages of completion.”
According to him, the Federal Ministry of Environment, in collaboration with critical stakeholders, had developed a national strategy for the phase-out of plastics, which are non-bio gradable. Therefore, two plants have been completed in Ilorin, Kwara state, one in Lokoja, Kogi state, while work is on-going in Karu Local Government Area of Nasarawa state.
He listed other locations of the plants as Bola Jari in Gombe state and Leda Jari in Kano state and adding that the establishment of the plants would assist to turn waste to wealth and ensure the sustainability of the environment. The minister solicited the support of the media to educate Nigerians on the effects of plastic pollution and the need to reduce, reuse and recycle plastics.
“National Environmental Standards and Regulation Enforcement Agency (NESREA) is solely charge of industries producing plastic and the industries are held for the end product. We engage the industries and we are in particular stage,” he stressed.
Ogoniland clean-up
The minister gave an update of the ogoniland clean-up and also the federal government had rolled out a timetable for the Ogoniland clean-up, adding that 140 out of the over 400 contractors that bided for the clean-up were pre-qualified. They are environment that are heavily polluted in ogoniland for clean-up and for sure environment to come to normal stage, it will take 25 to 30 years but the real activities of cleaning is, getting the soil that is contaminated, free the hydrocarbon, free the underground water and the creeks and to be clean is programme that will take 5years, so the regeneration of the environment getting to his normal stage it is what will take 25 to 30years.
“We have developed a robust programme for Ogoniland clean-up. We have rolled out the time table and we are hoping that by the end of August and early September, we would have finished all the procurement processes for contractors to move to site and start the actual remediation and cleaning exercise.
“The advertisement was done in April. We had more than 400 contractors who indicated interest and the preliminary figure is giving out a figure of about 140 contractors that are pre-qualified. These are the ones that when we finally get the figure, we will give them or invite them to submit their financial base,’’ he added.
He noted that the process would be continuing throughout the months of June and July and hoped that by August, it should be able to get to the Federal Executive Council for approval for any remediation consultancy that would be awarded.
According to him, development partners and joint venture oil companies are now at the last stage of populating their accounts with funds that will be used for the cleaning and so, we are on track and we expect to do what we can within the framework of what we are doing now. So state governments must key into what we are doing to achieve a better result in the environment.
Achievements
“I am glad to announce that we were awarded a prize in UK for our initiative on the Green Bond. This is the first green bond to be issued in Africa.
“We are making moves to list it in the Nigerian Stock Exchange and in a couple of weeks, it will be listed and the implication of this listing is that people, who are not privileged at the first issuance in December, 2017 can now go through third party and access the bond and trade in it. This means that there is investors’ confidence with what we are doing,’’ he added.
“The present administration attached much importance to the development of the environment. It is for this reason that this year’s WED celebration main event of June 5 will be personally graced by Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo as the special guest of honour.
