A Non-Governmental Organisation focused on promoting environmental sustainability, Eleven Eleven Twelve Foundation (EETF), has said that ending plastic pollution begins with changing individual behaviours that pose threats to the environment.
Temitope Lawal, Communications Lead of the foundation, stated this on Monday at an advocacy outreach to a supermarket in Ibadan, Oyo State, where the foundation launched and distributed its reusable shopping bags made from textile waste to shoppers, as part of activities to celebrate World Environment Day.
World Environment Day is an annual observance celebrated on June 5 to identify environmental issues and find solutions to them. For 2023, the focus is on solutions to plastic pollution under the campaign #BeatPlasticPollution.
Lawal noted that borrowing from the theme of the 2023 World Environment Day, the foundation chose to provide and advocate the use of reusable shopping bags as a solution and alternative to plastic shopping bags while saving the environment of textile wastes.
She said, “Plastic pollution is really posing a threat to both human and animal life in the environment. We aim at providing a solution. Instead of always saying that people should stop using plastic shopping bags, which is our focus for today, we are giving them an alternative.
“If we just come here and tell people with word of mouth not to use plastic bags, they will ask what we want them to use. We came here with a solution that can be re-used as often as possible. These bags are made from textile waste, so, asides from providing an alternative to plastic shopping bags, we are also taking care of wastes that would have ended up in landfills.
“We hope that from what we have done today, people will become more conscious and put in motion a systemic change into how we produce, how we consume and how we dispose of these things that we produce and consume.
“We know that plastic shopping bags may not be totally eradicated, but this is a start. What we are hoping to see is a change in human behaviour. These reusable shopping bags are solutions and we hope to get to a point where people won’t be looked at oddly if they come to shop with their own reusable shopping bags. This will also lessen the amount of shopping bags that end up in the oceans and those that pollute the environment. We believe that this will gear people to make changes in their lifestyle.”
The foundation had earlier organised a symposium for students of Ibadan International School where students were sensitised on the need to care for the environment and become change makers.
Lawal said the collaboration with students is “because they are going to be the future policymakers. It is a way of planting the seed of change in the young ones because they are the ones that are going to be here in the long run.
“We can’t just keep making changes at the top; we need to involve everybody and most importantly, the youths because if we don’t carry them along, they will grow up not knowing how their actions impact the environment.”
Some of the students who spoke to Tribune Online, including Iyinoluwa Adeyefa and Jubril Akande, said the symposium improved their knowledge of the hazard of plastic pollution and strengthened their resolve to combat it.
“This means taking care of the environment and getting everyone to know about the environment; to make sure that it is not harmed so that we too don’t get harmed. We want people to stop littering the environment and begin to care for it,” said Adeyefa.
Akande said, “This is about changing the world and for us to stop endangering both human and animal life through plastic pollution. If we have reusable shopping bags, it will help save the world.
“I will lecture people on the need to cut down their use of plastic shopping bags. I will also give out reusable shopping bags to people and when others see it, they would want to change their behaviours too.”
The foundation also collaborated with corps members of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Community Development Service (CDS) group in the state during the outreach.
Other members of the foundation at the advocacy outreach include Adebowale Ajenifuja, the Research Lead and Toluwalase Fawole, the Events and Engagement Lead.
This report is produced in fulfilment of the UNESCO & CIJ London Climate Change in News Media project facilitated by the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development
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