The Federal Executive Council (FEC) has approved a national policy on plastic waste management in Nigeria.
Minister of Environment, Mr Muhammad Mahmood, disclosed this to State House correspondents at the end of the weekly FEC meeting chaired by President Muhammadu Buhari.
“The Federal Ministry of Environment today presented a memo on the National Policy on plastic waste management in Nigeria. Recall that about three months ago, we presented a memo on solid waste management and plastic being one of the compositions of total waste, has a significant place in the total waste regime because of its non-biodegradable nature and we have plastics littered all over the place, which is an environmental hazard to both humans and animals.
“What this policy seeks to do is to seize the opportunity of our paradigm shift from linear to circular economy. The standard procedure in the past was, you produce, you use and dispose and we just realised that we cannot continue to do that and plastic has lent itself to recycling or reuse. Therefore, what this policy intends to achieve is to capitalise on that property of it being reused. Currently,” he said.
He said the Ministry of Environment has already built some plastic recycling plants across the country which would serve as a pilot scheme.
He said the private sector would have the opportunity to dominate the recycling plants, stressing that plastic waste is the second form of waste the country needs to deal with.
“There is a lot of these waste. Nigeria has a population of 200 million and plastic waste is like the second in terms of the quantity of total waste being produced in Nigeria today,” he said.
He said plastic can be recycled to produce blocks, new plastics and palettes for the production of interlocks and many more.
