A few days back, I decided to take a casual walk along my street in Lagos after the previous day’s rain. I saw a colossal amount of plastics being regurgitated by the drains and gutters of the city. Plastic pollution has progressed into one of the most pressing environmental challenges in urban areas. The rate of production and use of disposable plastic, also called single-use plastics, far outstrips our capacity to manage the accumulated waste.
In Nigeria, plastic pollution thrives. A report from a local recycling firm notes that Lagos, with a population of nearly 16 million people, produces between 13,000 to 15,000 tonnes of waste daily, of which about 2,250 tonnes are plastic.
Why Managing Single-Use Plastic is a Challenge?
Plastics pose a significant threat to the health of every living organism and, by extension, the environment. On entering the soil, plastics can contaminate and accumulate in food webs through agricultural soils, aquatic food chains, and water supply. Plastics can easily leach toxic substances such as dioxins, lead and cadmium into the ecosystem or intensify toxins already in the environment, making them bioavailable for direct or indirect ingestion by all organisms. When ingested into the human body directly through inhalation of burnt plastic or indirectly through consuming contaminated animals, plastics can lead to adverse health outcomes such as respiratory dysfunction and cancer. In the environment, plastic pollution blocks canals, leads to landscape disfigurement, and distorts plants growth.
How Can This Challenge be Dealt With?
Plastics have posed a long enough issue to the ecosystem, and it is high time the challenges were curtailed from individual to federal level. Eradicating plastic pollution can only be effective if the general public takes responsibility for the proper disposal and recycling management mechanisms, especially for single-use plastics. Contrary to my experience above, every individual should be environmentally cautious and guard against indiscriminate dumping of plastic materials. This is the primary means to arrest plastic pollution.
Secondly, on a federal level, enforcing a ban on single-use plastics could significantly reduce these materials in the environment. The regulation should be placed on the production and sale of single-use plastics to reduce waste and decrease landfill and associated greenhouse gas emissions from their manufacture and incineration.
Another means of controlling plastic waste is recycling. Plastic materials can be recycled into new and useful products. Plastics can also undergo combustion reactions to produce energy for electricity generation through a process known as waste to power. Several countries worldwide are tackling their pollution and energy deficit challenges through this medium. The first waste to power facility in Africa was launched in 2018 in Addis Ababa. Presently, countries like Tunisia and Kenya are developing plants to convert plastic waste substances into energy.