The Executive Secretary, Human and Environmental Development Agenda, Sulaimon Arigbabu, on Wednesday, called on the Federal Government to ban the use of styrofoam and polythene bags nationwide which, according to him, have become a nuisance in society.
Arigbabu, who further urged the government to ban the items, especially at social gatherings, made this call at a stakeholders’ meeting on the Building Community Response to Climate Change organized by HEDA Agenda Resource Centre, held at Ajibode community in Ibadan, the Oyo State capital.
He said, “We are advocating that the use of styrofoam to produce plates that people just eat, discard it anyhow and find the nuisance everywhere should be banned in Nigeria. We should be making a move towards even banning the use of plastic bags that we call nylon.
“It has become our norm nowadays. You see somebody goes to the nearest shop to buy N50 biscuit, the person has even started eating that biscuit, he or she will still ask for nylon. We collect nylon for everything we buy even a N20 sweet and these people producing the nylon have every possible size.
“Anything we want to eat, we collect nylon and we indiscriminately discard this nylon and it becomes a nuisance in our drainage, on our farm and pollutes our farmlands. So, we appeal to the government to ban the items in this country.”
While advising the government to improve the waste management system, the HEDA boss said the government needed to ban the production and sales of anything that has not been contributing meaningfully to society.
Arigbabu also called on the religious houses, different associations and traders associations to enlighten their members on the need to reduce the use of polythene bags as it affects both the drainage and farmlands.
Two of the participants, Jadesola Adetunji and Adesegun Adeosun, who spoke with The PUNCH, said the programme impacted positively their lives, promising to go back to their respective communities and enlighten them on the need to dispose of their polythene bags properly.