Nigeria’s government has assured the global community that it’s committed to the programmes aimed at promoting sound management of plastic waste in the environment.
Giving the assurance, while declaring open the inception meeting/workshop of the project entitled ‘Promoting Environmentally Sound Management and Control of Transboundary Trade of Plastic Waste in Nigeria, Through Inventory and Stakeholder Mapping’ which is being implemented in Nigeria by the Basel Convention Coordinating Centre for the African Region (BCCC-Africa) under the Small Grants Programmes on Plastic Waste of the Basel Convention, Nigeria› s Minister of the Environment, Mohamed Abdulahi, said the Federal Government on its part would provide necessary technical support to ensure smooth take-off and completion of the project.
While commending BCCC-Africa for attracting the project and the Secretariat of the Basel, Rotterdam and Stockholm (BRS) Conventions for awarding the intervention project to Nigeria, the minister who was represented at the event, expressed appreciation to the government of Norway through its Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) for providing the funds.
The minister noted that plastic waste problem had dominated discourse on environmental pollution at the global level in the last few years
As a result of this, he said the United Nation Environment Assembly (UNEA) decided to initiate negotiations on global agreement to end plastic pollution (UNEA-5.2), at its fifth session in Nairobi on March 2, 2022.
In an effort to tackle plastic waste problem in Nigeria,the minister explained that the Federal Government had to produce the National Policy on Solid Waste Management, which was approved in 2020 and the National Policy on Plastic Waste Management, which was also approved in 2020.
Stating the objectives of the intervention project, Executive Director of Basil Convention Coordinating Center for the African Region – based at the University of Ibadan, Professor Percy Onianwa, said were to promote the environmentally sound management (ESM) of plastic wastes in Nigeria through provision of reliable data on local plastic waste generation rates, and plastic waste trade (import/export), for the enhancement of ESM and control of transboundary movement of plastic waste.
«Establishment of database of local stakeholders involved in the lifecycle of plastics management in Nigeria. This will contribute to effective control of transboundary movement, ESM, and tackling sources of plastic waste,› he said.
According to the professor of chemistry at the University of Ibadan, the process would involve the use of a recently-developed toolkit (the BRS-Norad toolkit) that is applicable to developing countries such as Nigeria, explaining that it›s based on material flow analysis.
«The data to be generated will be quantitative and qualitative and is expected to include information on plastic waste generation, recycling, disposal, sectorial and regional contributions, exports, imports, polymer types, etc. The value of such data for national planning cannot be underestimated. The process will also establish a platform for mapping stakeholders in the plastic waste management sector, and engender networking amongst the stakeholders.
«Such a platform will provide a readily available list of national plastic waste stakeholders involved in manufacturing, recycling, regulations, enforcement, academia, collection, disposal, etc. There is no doubt that the resulting networking can cascade into other positive benefits for the nation,» he said.
The professor explained further that the project was designed to implement the national inventory of plastic waste in Nigeria and to carry out stakeholders mapping of those who are involved in plastic waste management issues in the country.
Stakeholders at the inception workshop comprised officials of the Federal and State Governments, ministries, departments and agencies, officials of Nigeria Customs Service, waste managers and regulators, academia, non-governmental organisations and waste recyclers, among others, who expressed concerns over the increasing quantum of plastic waste in the environment.
The plastic waste, they said came from all manner of sources such as packaging and storage of food, drinks and beverages and shopping.
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