By Vivian Emoni
Abuja – The Abuja Environmental Protection Board (AEPB) has urged the residents of Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to properly dispose of their liquid waste in order to protect humans and their environment.
Mr Muktar Ibrahim, Head of AEPB’s Information and Outreach Unit, gave the advice in an interview with News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Tuesday in Abuja.
He stressed that proper disposal of liquid waste would involve suitable treatment, recycling and re-use of the waste.
“I, therefore, call on Nigerians, especially the residents of FCT, to take this message home and ensure that their liquid waste is properly disposed of so as to ensure its treatment, recycling and re-use.
“Some of the targets of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) are to reach everyone with the sanitation message and to halve the proportion of untreated wastewater to boost recycling and safe re-use.
“For that to be achieved, everyone’s waste should be contained, transported, treated and disposed of in a safe, sustainable way.
“Therefore, to also achieve the SDGs, tangible efforts should be made to ensure proper packaging, disposal and re-use of waste,’’ he said.
Ibrahim said globally, about 1.8 billion of people relied on unwholesome sources of drinking water with no protection against contamination from substances like faeces.
He said that 80 per cent of the wastewater generated by the society usually flowed back into the ecosystem without being treated or recycled.
He said that open defecation was also a problem in the FCT, adding that most of the houses in the satellite communities had no toilets.
Ibrahim said that the toilets in some neighbourhoods were even connected to nearby streams or water courses, thereby affecting human and aquatic lives.
He underscored the need for good sanitation systems, saying that if human waste was not disposed of properly, it could trigger outbreak of diseases in the society.
He said that the progresses made in efforts to promote human health and child survival were seriously undermined via indiscriminate disposal of waste.
Ibrahim, however, called on the stakeholders to support government in its efforts to boost the people’s access to potable water and protect the environment from filth. (NAN)