MINA Blog- The Lagos State Government on Monday said that to prevent environmental hazards, the skills involved in plastic waste recycling should be explored by everyone, including retirees.
The state Head of Service, Mr Hakeem Muri-Okunola, stated this during the start of a five-day plastic recycling training programme organised for public service retirees at Alausa, Ikeja.
Muri-Okunola, who was represented by the Permanent Secretary of the Public Service Office, Mrs Sunkanmi Oyegbola, noted that the plastic recycling value chain will promote waste-to-wealth for citizens.
He said, “It is on record that plastics constitute one of the largest waste streams. The indiscriminate disposal of plastics, the amount of space they occupy at landfills and their non-biodegradable nature have raised serious concerns at different fora in recent times.
“Therefore, this training programme on waste plastics recycling is not only apt at this moment, but also key in the education of Lagosians on the identification and segregation of wastes and their proper disposal, available opportunities in waste plastics value chain, and other economic advantages inherent in the management of wastes, and I am confident that this will complement the state government’s efforts to prevent environmental hazards.”
The General Manager, Lagos Waste Management Authority, Mr Ibrahim Odumboni, said, “For everyone here, you will probably use up to 170 bottles or sachets of water in a year, and if we have 22 million residents in Lagos that generates about 4.2 billion of plastics and these plastics don’t go anywhere, so there is a need for us to take action and that is to recycle.”