By Hassana Yakubu
The Chairman, Shehu Plastic & Company Nigeria, Alhaji Shehu Usman, on Tuesday said the Company had transformed many Kaduna Street waste to useful domestic materials through recycling.
Usman said this when African Climate Reporters paid a courtesy visit to the recycling plant in Kaduna, Kaduna State.
According to him, waste recycling is a major component of waste management that involves the conversion of waste to reusable products for both domestic and office use.
”This is one of the biggest recycling plants in the North where plastic bottles, rubber and other waste materials are collected and transformed to various domestic uses.
”We buy these plastic bottles, rubbers and other waste materials from scavengers and waste commercial sellers and transform them to various uses.
”The machines grind the waste materials into pieces, after which we take the pieces to where they design new products.
”The pieces are turned into buckets, cups, rubber kettles and basins which can be used for domestic purposes and even in the gardens,” he said.
Shehu said that the company transformed about five tonnes of plastic rubber waste to useful domestic materials monthly, adding that the finished products were sold in Kaduna and other parts of the country.
He said that waste recycling helped in “conserving natural resources, save the environment from pollution and other environmental challenges.”
The Chairman maintained that recycling was an alternative to conventional waste disposal and help to lower greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere.
He stated that recycling was an important business in developed countries, adding that it was only of recent that African countries were coming up with plans to recycle waste.
According to Shehu, recycling helps in cleaning the environment and also generates income for many unemployed youths engaged in the business.
Shehu said that there were shortage of recycling companies in the region, adding that epileptic power supply and insecurity were crippling development of many companies in the North.
He said that dirty environment affect the standard of living, aesthetic sensibilities and health of the people as well as the quality of their lives.
Shehu said that producing new products from recycled materials was a cost effective way of managing production cost.
Dr Piman Hoffman, the Director African Climate Reporters, said that the Federal Government should encourage more recycling companies across the country.
He said that these would help in tackling waste causing various diseases and other environmental challenges in the society.
According to him, the economy also benefits from recycling as it reduces the cost to clear dump sites.
He stated that government could save additional millions of naira when such dump sites were reserved for other revenue generating purposes.
Hoffman said that there was need to support recycling companies financially, adding that residents could also benefit by selling recycling materials to cover the cost of disposing waste.
NAN
