By Peter Usanga
Caritas Nigeria, also known as Catholic Caritas Foundation of Nigeria (CCFN), the official relief and development arm of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Nigeria (CBCN), on Monday June 5, joined the rest of the world to commemorate the World Environment Day.
The Executive Secretary of Caritas Nigeria, Rev. Fr. Uche Obodoechina, while welcoming guests to the special seminar which was on the theme, ‘Solution to Plastic Pollution’, explained that the essence of the seminar on the world environment day is to invite environmental experts and critical stakeholders to speak to the public on the state of our environment and the degradation of the environment that has caused a lot of harm to the society today, and to further sensitize the public on the effect of their poor habit on the environment.
“When our environment is not kept clean, when we litter the environment, our communities our families with plastic waste, that are not recyclable or things of that nature, we will be harming the health of others and our own health. Therefore, Caritas today is inviting all of us to some level of awareness about our activities in the environment in which we live and how these activities affect our lives and the lives of others and how we can make the environment more habitable for all of us”
While speaking on the theme, Fr Obodoechina disclosed that Caritas Nigeria is responding to the call of the Holy Father, Pope Francis, in his 2015 ‘Laudato si’ document that specified the responsibilities of each individual persons, communities and government to see that the environment becomes a habitable home and looking at our experience in Nigeria where we are always using plastics like sachets, bottled water, which are dangerous to the environment. He added that there is need for all to come together, think together, work together and brainstorm to see how best to manage the place of plastics in human lives.
“Is not going to be easy to say we do not need these plastics at all, but if we use them, how do we use them, and how do we begin to make our lives better without using much of them to save the environment from the hazards that come with them?”
The Head of the Environment unit of Caritas Nigeria, Dr. Emmanuel Okechukwu, further disclosed that the interest of the environment unit is hinged on management of public waste like the plastics which according to him, also informed the choice of the theme and how they can help the public manage plastic waste which has become and environmental threat to every city in Nigeria.
Dr. Emmanuel, a Public Health practitioner, also stated that the activity started with a community survey on plastic waste management in Durumi, where they discovered that the public are relatively aware of the dangers of plastic waste and also discovered that the places most polluted by plastics are the streets, the markets and the motor parks.
While adding that the next step of advocacy will be to call on community leaders and government officials to support the people by providing waste bins at those strategic locations to aid proper disposal of these waste products to save people and the environment, also disclosed that their survey revealed that the people are ready to dispose those waste properly, if the necessary tools are put in place.
An associate of the unit, Dr. Paschal Onu, noted that the dangers of plastic waste to the environment cannot be overemphasized, because it is what concerns all of us. He also observed that from their survey in the Durumi, even though people are aware of the dangers of plastic waste to the environment, their effort in curbing it is not encouraging, even as he disclosed that part of their recommendations to the government on this World Environment Day, will be to provide waste bins at strategic locations in communities to aid proper disposal of these waste.
The World Environment Day which is the largest global public platform for environmental public health outreach, is globally observed on June 5th annually since 1973, and it is led by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) to encourage and create awareness and action towards the protection of the environment.
