In a bid to address the challenges of plastic pollution and guarantee cleaner environment, the Pan African University of Life and Earth Sciences Institute, (including Health and Agriculture) in conjunction with some experts, had a brainstorming session with stakeholders at the permanent site of PAULESI, University of Ibadan, Oyo State, Nigeria on Tuesday.
The initiative, sponsored by the British Council and driven by PAULESI in partnership with Co-Creation Hub and DeMontfort University Leicester, UK, was tailored towards seeking home grown solution to address the menace of plastic pollution and engage the youth productively for the overall good of Africa.
Among others, the session projected the roles of universities, as research centres, in developing suitable models and tools with which a thriving ecosystem could be attained via the conversion of waste plastics into raw materials especially for 3-D printing.
Shedding light on efforts being made so far to achieve the objectives of the ‘Circular Plastic Economy Innovation Hub: Stakeholders Engagement,’ the Director of PAULESI, Prof. Esther Akinlabi, said that a roadmap to take the project forward was being developed.
According to her, University of Nigeria Nsukka; Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria; University of Lagos, Akoka; Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife; and PAULESI, are being engaged as research institutions to drive the project.
The university don said that “At this workshop, we are looking forward to applying a roadmap to take the whole project forward from the engagement that we are having today into supporting the various universities that are on board – UNN, ABU, UNILAG, OAU and PAULESI – all making five universities.
“We are going to continue to provide necessary 1 for them to be able to continue in the research and development and actual production of these equipment that could be used to convert the plastic bottles that are picked from the streets into pellets. They would use that to produce filament for 3-D printers.
“We don’t want to just import these equipment from abroad. We are proffering African solutions to African problems. We want to be able to provide a support-base to the universities. We want to produce the equipment by ourselves in-house. One, it would save cost and two, we want to use recyclable materials to produce some of these machines.
“We want to have a re-designing of the equipment that would be able to answer some of the problems of plastic menace that we have in our society. We want the universities to be able to produce extruders, crushers and 3-D printers that would be able to recycle the plastics. In so doing, it would be easy for us to replicate such equipment across the universities in the country. It would also be easy for us as well to replicate it in the various communities.”
This, she said, would make great impact across the country as she expressed the hope that many people outside the university environment would be engaged productively through the project.
Prof. Muyiwa Oyinlola, the Director of Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development, De Montfort University, Leicester, UK, said that “One of the objectives of the initiative is to build capacity for innovation to tackle the circular and plastic pollution challenge.”
Oyinlola, who is an associate professor in Sustainable Development, said that the initiative was also being targeted at entrepreneurship and innovation, capacity building and supporting the ecosystem.
He stressed that “We are saying that universities should be able to drive the process by engaging entrepreneurs, government and other stakeholders. We want to add value to (waste) plastics. The idea is that you won’t see N20 in the drainage and not pick it up. So, if you see plastic in a drainage, you would pick it because it adds value.”
Dr. Seun Kolade, an Associate Professor, Entrepreneurship and International Development at De Montfort University, described the plastic problem as a multi-stakeholder problem which required multi-stakeholder solution.
Kolade, who doubles as the chairman of the African Entrepreneurship Cluster, said, “The expectation is to consolidate the brilliant ideas. You have seen the people who are gathered here today from a whole range of backgrounds and disciplines. You have the industry guys here, four to five universities here as well as the private sector.
“The expectation is that going on from here, we begin to implement some of the ideas and bring people in the public space into the picture by way of incentive for people to recycle their products and for industries to also invest in it. Government should also come in by way of policy instrument and intervention.”
The Corporate Affairs and Sustainability Director of the Nigerian Bottling Company, Mr Ekuma Eze, said that the task of solving the plastic challenge is not what government or any other institution alone could do, “so we need collaboration among institutions, government and NGOs to put our resources and ideas together to bring solution to the plastic challenge.
“At Coca Cola, we had been in this as far back as 2005. We engaged in partnership where we were able to recycle over 7billion bottles in eight years. Now, we evolved to align the industry in forming the food and beverage company alliance. Now, the producer responsibility organisation has grown to 22 as we speak today. All of us are working in tandem to evolve solution to the plastic challenge.
“The Coca Cola Foundation has also been magnanimous in funding a whole number of initiatives in the country all geared towards bringing solution to the plastic issue.”
Abraham Akpan, Programme Manager, CPEIHub, expressed the hope that the programme would be beneficial to the teaming Nigerian youth population through gainful career engagements.
Stating that the flooding problem being experienced could be linked to environmental factors of which plastic pollution was key, Akpan said that “The plastics block our drainages thereby causing harmful effects. We want the university lecturers and students to come up with innovative solutions while the younger ones would build entrepreneurship systems around.”
Bukola Areo from the Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, Oyo State, representing the Commissioner, said, “The ministry has taken several giant steps towards managing plastic wastes in the state.
Areo, who said that recycling was key to waste management, disclosed that in Oyo State, “We have corporate organisations coming up to donate waste bags to the ministry and we also engaged the community and landlord associations by distributing waste bags and encouraging them to sort their wastes from source. We have to sort the plastics from the organic wastes so that we would be able to recycle it. The ministry also engaged scavengers.”
