Environment stakeholders have called on the Federal Government to ban the production of single-use plastics in the country.
According to them, a total ban on the production will help mitigate the effect of climate change.
Single-use Plastic Products (SUPs) are used once, or for a short period of time, before being thrown away. Analysts have said that they are more likely to end up in the ocean than reusable options.
In a webinar organized by Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) on Wednesday in Abuja, the Director, Global Climate Programme Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives (GAIA), Ms Mariel Vilella, said plastic production and pollution resulted in greenhouse gas emissions at each stage of its lifecycle.
Vilella said there is a need for effective waste management policies in Africa, which would promote zero and reduced plastic waste, saying that it contributed 20 per cent of anthropogenic methane.
This, she said, made it an extremely dangerous greenhouse gas and a super pollutant.
“Seventy per cent of global greenhouse gas emissions come from product life cycles – the stuff we extract, transport, and use and how we waste it,” she said.
In his opening remark, Dr Chima Williams, Director of the ERA/FoEN said a lot of policies that would outlaw single use plastics were needed in the global south.
The call for ban, he said, was necessary due to the problems associated with the use of the product such as flooding that always lead to perennial loss of lives and properties in the developing countries.
Also speaking, the Executive Director, Sustainable Research and Action for Environmental Development (SRADev) Nigeria, Mr Leslie Adogame advocated policies that would fill the gap between waste management vis-a-vis plastic waste management in the country.
He suggested cross-fertilisation of ideas across Africa on how to leverage on zero waste to address the climate crisis.
