How BCCC-Africa plans to work with students, NYSC to end plastic pollution

That plastics are ubiquitous is an understatement. Because they are very useful, plastics are found everywhere. Since the earliest invention in 1862 by Alexander Parkes in the United Kingdom to their mass adoption in the 1960s, plastics have revolutionised every industry and home. However, with time the world has come to recognise that plastics, as useful as they are, pose a huge menace to the environment. There is now frantic efforts globally to curb the scourge of plastic pollution.

Fresh off the heels of this year’s World Environment Day celebration with the theme “End Plastic Pollution,” the Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for the African Region (BCCC-Africa) on June 18, held a one-day Inception Workshop for a project titled: “Accelerating community awareness on plastic waste through interventions with students and graduates of tertiary educational institutions in Ibadan, Nigeria,” on the campus of the University of Ibadan (UI), Ibadan, Oyo State.

The programme targeted mostly students in their final year of study at the University of Ibadan and The Polytechnic Ibadan, alongside members of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

The BCCC-Africa  Executive Director, Professor Percy Onianwa, stated: “Our pilot is innovative, as Nigerian students and youth corps member have never before been utilized in this manner for any community awareness raising programme. The scheme has a high potential for wide reach within the country. The trainees are also likely to carry on with awareness building activities even beyond the lifespan of this project. It is hoped that the various levels of governments in Nigeria will be able to acquire ownership of the programme and scale it up beyond the proposed two institutions, and even in support of other environmentally beneficial programmes.”

He said that the project is “being executed by the BCCC-Africa, with funding provided by the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm Conventions through its third Small Grants Programme (SGP-3) on Plastic Wastes.”

BCCC-Africa, explaining in a concept note, stated that with a population of slightly over 200 million, and an economy that readily supports the procurement and use of cheap plastic materials, the generation of plastic waste is massive in Nigeria. A 2022 study of annual waste generation in Nigeria, conducted by BCCC-Africa, estimates this to be nearly 7 million tonnes.

BBCC-Africa noted that Nigeria’s plastic waste management problem is huge and this is compounded by a high illiteracy rate of about 31 percent.

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As a solution, the organization proposed a project to “tap into a pool of readily available information materials and human resource for the purpose of executing a sustainable awareness building scheme in Nigeria, with its first nucleus in two academic institutions in Ibadan, south-west of the country, and the ever-available pool of educated young Nigerians involved in the NYSC scheme.”

Professor Onianwa said, “Firstly, we propose, as a pilot, to train a good number of final year students who will soon be deployed from their university into the NYSC scheme. These will be specially selected, sensitized and equipped with adequate information and skills to impart knowledge in local communities wherever they may be deployed for service.

“We propose to carry out this pilot with about 450 students of the University of Ibadan, and 450 students of The Polytechnic Ibadan, two prime tertiary academic institutions in the city of Ibadan.”

He added that the second approach will be to work with NYSC corps members that are already deployed to serve in the metropolitan city of Ibadan. 

The proposal is to also conduct training programmes for these serving corpers and build them into another pool of ‘ambassadors’ carrying out awareness raising activities on plastic waste in the Ibadan area.

Again, the pool of Youth corps members deployed to the city of Ibadan is replenished several times a year, thereby guaranteeing sustainability of this component of the programme. Monitoring and evaluation will be easier with this group as they will be located in same Ibadan city as the BCCC-Africa. About 300 Corpers will be trained.

At the inception workshop, the participants were given a brief overview of Basel Convention, the scope of work at BCCC-Africa and what the project entails, by Professor Onianwa.

Other facilitators made their presentations as follows: Professor Aina Adeogun intimated participants on other plastic projects taking place in the university. Professor Gilbert Adie spoke on the proposed contents for the training. Another facilitator, Joshua Babayemi, made a presentation on plastic pollution and efforts to address it. Nelly Forteta and David Bejide jointly gave a presentation on the Assessment of Knowledge of plastic waste issues among final year students of University of Ibadan and The Polytechnic Ibadan. According to their findings, it was discovered that “there is a general lack of knowledge regarding the life cycle and hazards of plastic pollution” and “There is an urgent need to educate the youth on plastics pollution.”

A representative from the Federal Ministry of Environment, Temitope Babarinde, remarked that Federal Government was fully in support of the initiative by BCCC-Africa to create awareness towards the elimination of plastic pollution.

Dr Margaret Ana from the National Environmental Standards and Regulations Enforcement Agency (NESREA) said that workshop was timely in view of the scale of plastic pollution in Nigeria today and globally.

Christopher Onuh Kygo, a final year student of Biochemistry at the University of Ibadan, expressed excitement that he could be part of the solution to the plastic scourge. He said, “I live in Lagos. When it rains, you see how the surroundings become littered with plastic waste. I now know that this issue can be dealt with when we recycle, reduce and reuse plastic.”

Another trainee, Mercy Edeh, a corps member serving in Ibadan, said: “It has been an interesting event. I know plastics are chemicals but I didn’t know plastic pollution was that bad. Coming here has improved my knowledge.” She said she would apply the information and share it as her own way increasing awareness on plastic pollution.

Also speaking, Dr Abiodun Adegbuyi, Deputy Registrar, Directorate of Student Affairs, representing the Dean, Student Affairs of The Polytechnic, Ibadan, said despite her previous knowledge about plastics, the workshop provided deeper insight to the scope of the problem and possible solutions. She then expressed her readiness to support BCCC-Africa in the follow-up trainings for participating polytechnic students.