Concerned stakeholders in Nigeria have drawn the attention of the government and private-sector operators to the increasing challenge of plastic pollution in the country, warning that this required urgent solutions to prevent dire consequences to the environment.
They called for immediate collaborations among the government, private sector and communities to tackle the challenge towards having a safe environment and preserving the future.
Rising usage of plastics, composed of toxic chemicals and non-degradable substances, has become a major source of pollutants, leading to air, land and water pollution, which in turn has created challenges for plant and animal lives.
This naturally poses challenge to Nigeria’s economic growth and has become a threat to the country’s realisation of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, set by the United Nations to be achieved by year 2030.
This raised concerns amon speakers at a one-day CEO Roundtable on Sustainability themed ‘Action to Mitigate Plastic Pollution,’ organised by the Lagos Business School in partnership with some organisations towards exploring various frameworks for partnerships and collaborations involving the government, private sector and the larger society in addressing plastic pollution in Nigeria.
Describing the present plastic pollution in Nigeria as a matter of urgent attention, the Managing Director of Guinness Nigeria, Baker Magunda said this required companies, government, civil society groups and the general public to begin to take specific steps towards tackling the issue.
Describing this as a global challenge, he said that at least 8 million tons of plastics are dumped into the ocean every year which he said was the equivalent of a garbage truck dumping its load into the ocean every minute.
Magunda said mitigation of plastic pollution is pertinent as researches had confirmed the adverse effects of plastic pollution on the health and well-being of humans, aquatic life and society at large.
“It has become clear that this issue will not resolve itself, it will require the collective efforts of everyone through personal action, corporate programs and government strategies to address the global challenge of single use plastic pollution and the harm it inflicts on our environment,” Magunda said.
The Guinness director believes that a proactive approach to establish new and leverage existing multi-stakeholder partnerships which support the collection, processing, recycling of plastics would lead to the transformative solutions needed not only to tackle the issue of plastic pollution, but also help protect the environment on which lives and the businesses depend.
He recalled that in Nigeria, the government had introduced the Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy to promote total life cycle and environmental improvement of production systems. This, according to him, meant that businesses must play an active part in the take-back, recycling and the final disposal of their product.
“At Guinness Nigeria, we take this responsibility very seriously and implement it through our waste management strategy called the 4Rs: Reduction, Reuse, Recovery and Recycling,” he said.
In her presentation, Folasade Morgan, Chairperson of Food and Beverage Recycling Alliance (FBRA), said that government had a role to play by ensuring that the right policies were put in place to drive consumer participation in waste management and to drive enforcement of proper waste sorting practices in Nigeria.
She said that in Nigeria about 148,000 tons of plastic wastes are generated annually while less than 30% is collected, because the business of waste collection is highly informal.
“When collection firms collect single used plastics, it makes it cheaper to recycle. When we are able to build that awareness, investors will be attracted to set up recycling facilities because they can see that there is a working system for waste collection” said Morgan, who is also the corporate affairs director at Nigeria Breweries Plc.
She emphasised that in Nigeria there should be collaboration to scale up awareness, sorting practices and collection of plastic waste.
Special Assistant to President Buhari on SDGs, Adejoke Adefulire, represented at the forum by her assistant, Bala Yussuf Yunusa, said the issue of sustainable development speaks to the environment which is one of the SDG goals.
He said there was a need to involve the Organised Private Sector (OPS) for expert advice and financial resources to achieve the SDGs which are interrelated.
“A recent UN report estimates that Nigeria needs approximately N83 billion annually to fund the implementation of SDGs and this will be difficult to come from annual budgetary sources. Therefore, there is the need for OPS to help the government in terms of innovative financing that can support the funding of SDGs in terms of critical infrastructures”, Yunusa said.
Speaking earlier, Chris Ogbechie, Director LBS Sustainability Centre, advised that “we should not wait until we get to the crisis level before we begin to tackle the challenge” of plastic pollution.
During the panel discussion, Anil Ramchand Mohinani, Country Manager, Mohanani Group, said 9,000 tons of general waste – plastics, nylon and bottles – are generated annually and regretted the gap in collection of wastes. He also advocated for the monetisation of waste to attract investors.
