As part of efforts to reduce marine plastic pollution, a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) Initiative for Advancement of Waste Management in Africa (WASTE Africa) has trained over five hundred women from various communities in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The initiative which was supported by Global Environment Facility, Small Grants Programme in Nigeria, (GEF-SGP), was also aimed at reducing marine plastic pollution in Lugbe and Gwagwalada communities, with focus on Rupa River and Usuma River in the FCT.
Speaking at the event in Abuja, the Prgram Coordinator Waste Africa, Mrs Odhikori Juliet, while lamenting the negative effects of marine pollution, said the oceans could contain more plastic than fish by 2050 if urgent steps were not taken to prevent it.
She said NGOs have collected over 50,000 kg of materials from the recycling efforts of the women.
“And how we wanted to do that was to start community led recycling programs from ten clusters, so we have five recycling clusters in Lugbe Area and five recycling clusters in Gwagwalada area.
“We empowered over five hundred women to start collecting materials, So there are local recyclers who collect materials from their environment, plastics, cans, papers, every recyclable material, and then they earn money from it,” she said.
In her remarks, National Coordinator GEF-SGP, Mrs Ibironke Olubamise, lamented the negative impact of plastic waste on terrestrial and marine environments, adding that it has caused havoc to society and human health.
She added that the program aims to create awareness about the dangers of plastic waste in the environment so as to reduce the menace.
According to her, “One of what we do in our office is to support environmental initiatives, of course, from the GEF small grants program, we call it the small grants because the maximum amount for a regular project is about 50,000 US dollars. and so we support community environmental initiatives to address any of the focal areas of the GEF we have five focal areas of the GEF small grant, biodiversity, climate change, land degradation, chemicals and international waters.
“So this project, it falls under the focal area of international waters, plastic but targeting international waters. as you have heard in the presentation, we have two international waters in Abuja in a Federal Capital Territory, the idea is to reduce, create awareness about plastic menace in the environment how these plastics are finding their ways into the water bodies”
Mrs Olubamise disclosed that one of strategies of curbing the menace of plastic waste was to incorporate skill acquisition by empowering women.
She said, “One of our strategy is to support pilot projects, when we support pilot projects, and we see the success stories, it is easy for the project to be either replicated or upscale so we also then share the information with other agencies, donors, governments, politicians that are interested, and when they are interested, well, of course, they can always replicate it in other places.
“We have seen several of our projects being taken over by embassies, by bilateral donors because they saw that, we have supported these people in only ten communities can we upscale it to hundreds communities, for example. So these are some of the strategy that we use for it to be sustainable and then to expand.”