Business
FG Plans Recycling Facilities For Waste Management
The Federal Ministry of Environment has reaffirmed its commitment towards establishing 29 plastic and six metal scrap recycling facilities to promote waste management across the country.
Dr Oludayo Dada, Director, Pollution Control and Environmental Health in the ministry, told newsmen in Abuja on Monday that work on the facilities had started.
Dada said, “The level of completion of the facilities vary from 50 per cent to about 80 per cent. We hope that before this year runs out we must have completed them.
“These are pilot projects in the states to enable us know if it is possible to recycle waste for commercial purposes.
“The project aims at collating all the plastics within the benefiting states, to turn them into pellet that can serve as raw materials for household items like buckets and slippers.
He said the ministry undertook the initiative to curb the disposal of plastics and cellophanes that litter and pollute the environment.
The director further said that the metal scrap recycling facility in the six geo-political zones of Nigeria were established in Kaduna, Sokoto, Bauchi, Rivers, Oyo and Abia states.
He said, “The whole idea is that at the end of the day, with all these facilities being in place we will be able to cover the issues of metal scrap in Nigeria.
“We started in 2009 with Kaduna, which is almost 60 per cent to 70 per cent completed now.
“We have started the one in Sokoto. Bauchi has a plastic recycling plant also cited there.”
The Tide reports that the construction of the recycling facilities are funded by the Federal Government and the Ecological Fund Office.