By Ezra Musa
Kaduna – The Kaduna State Government on Thursday launched a public sensitization campaign on used plastic materials, as part of efforts to reduce their health and environmental hazards in the state.
The Commissioner for Environment, Amina Sijuwade, led a road walk to sensitise the public to the dangers of plastic bottles, bags and other materials which were not biodegradable and could pollute the environment.
She said that plastic materials constituted serious challenges to the soil, drains and homes, while causing environmental degradation.
“We hope that with our road walk, members of the public will know why it is important to dispose of these plastics properly; in addition, we are conducting a clean-up exercise.
“We are setting up 10 transfer stations that would be publicised on radio, on our twitter handle and our blogs, where we will be collecting plastic bottles and bags for a token reward of drinks, recharge cards and Indomie packets, among other gifts.
“We are going to sustain the campaign, this is like a pilot programme which the ministry is conducting and we are doing this in partnership with Kaduna State Environmental Protection Agency (KEPA),’’ he said.
Sijuwade said that the ministry and KEPA had been conducting the sensitisation campaign in schools, adding: “We started with the road walk today and it will be running concurrently with other schemes next year,” she said.
News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that officials of the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources and other stakeholders embarked on the 15km road walk within the Kaduna metropolis to sensitise the public. (NAN)